The mixer of ruthless demagoguery

“We have said that we want gun ownership for the Greek man, training for the Greek woman, for everyone,” the leader of the nationalist Greek Solution party, Kyriakos Velopoulos, said in an interview with state-run broadcaster ERT, commenting on the murder of a woman by her former partner outside a police station. His party is on the rise in the latest opinion polls. Velopoulos said that perhaps “if the woman had been trained she would have been able to defend herself.” That is, we assume that if she had practiced self-defense, becoming maybe another Lara Croft or the heroine in the film “Kill Bill,” she could have neutralized her killer.

The view on gun ownership was formulated as part of the discussion on what needs to change in the Hellenic Police. “First of all, the young officers are untrained. They train them for two or three months, and put them in the police force. They don’t even do the basics,” Velopoulos claimed. It did not matter that journalists tried repeatedly to bring him face to face with the disastrous consequences of his recommendation. He just repeated that people will keep their weapons “in the house, will not walk around with them.” The mixer of ruthless demagoguery has an easy solution for everything. And of course, after such a heinous crime, who doesn’t flirt with the idea of vigilantism?

The rise in Greek Solution’s popularity will likely affect the political landscape in Greece. Combined with a possible dissolution of the parliamentary group of the far-right Spartiates (due to an ongoing investigation into alleged electoral fraud), where else would part of their voters turn to? Therefore, with the wind in his sails, Velopoulos (who has linked his name with the sale of wax ointments and the “letters of Jesus” on TV) repeated every so often at the interview that he is not “into conspiracy theories” but “if we had a proper democracy in Greece, at least 1,000 crooks would be prison.” Is there a single coffee shop in Greece where similar sweeping statements have not been heard?

When conspiracies merge with the “public’s sense of justice,” the mix is unpredictable. When you indulge the most basic instincts and put aside facts, you find yourself riding the tidal wave of irrationality. The moment is opportune for the protest vote to join with the vote of despair.