Puritan ideologues and hard reality
The ideological chasm between those who propose solutions to problems and those who choose to live in fantasies and fossilized ideologies is not determined by whether they are on the Left or Right of the old political distinctions. Often, the same party can be divided along the lines of members who feel the need to handle problems in the real world and those who want to impose a mentality which is based on an idealized past or a utopian future, who reject whatever smacks of compromise with reality.
The reactionaries may believe what they advocate, or they may be exploiting the naivete of those who are attracted by simplistic mentalities and who reject society’s need to adapt if it is to survive.
In the United States, we see how Donald Trump’s supporters are a solid group which is in no way threatened by any revelations of criminal behavior or general incompetence: They have taken him as their leader and will believe only what they want to believe about him, the world and themselves. This group is sufficiently compact and large that few Republicans dare to oppose Trump.
The Democrats, on the other hand, vie with each other to find reasons not to support Joe Biden’s re-election: He is either too old, too supportive of Israel or not supportive enough of Israel. Even as the economy improves, the president is not credited with the success of his program. The “puritan” Democrats are capable of contributing to Trump’s victory, as long as they can claim to be in the right on secondary issues; the Republican “puritans” will let nothing get in the way of victory.
In Greece, where the management of immigration and the concurrent lack of labor demand delicate handling, we see a former prime minister investing in an inflexible position on this, against the governing party (to which he belongs). Antonis Samaras employed the same tactic three decades ago, on the Macedonia issue, with long-term costs to the country and to New Democracy, which split and fell from power. Later, as leader of the same party, his campaign against the international bailout’s conditions made a very difficult mission even more complicated for the then government and, subsequently, the nation. He always declared himself sure of his positions, despite their cost.
Today, with his incisive intervention in foreign and domestic policy, can he be aiming at anything other than to prove that, for him, “ideological purity” always trumps the need for a cool assessment of reality?
