WASHINGTON – I have spent the last few weeks in Greece, namely in Athens and Crete, cruising the waters of the Aegean Sea and tasting cuisine that is exquisite, almost as wonderful as the archaic monuments. Frankly, the lying practiced on this side of the Atlantic during the last election has become unbearable to me. I needed a break from the chaos of an election year. So I went to a part of the world where the locals, when they say, “For me, it’s all Greek,” really mean it. Nobody complains. Moreover, when they say their democracy is in trouble, they know what they are talking about. Athens is where democracy was first tried and it seemed to work… at least for the first few millennia.
However, in state-of-the-art times, Greek democracy has been a failure. It started, as it often happens, with economics. About twenty years ago, the Greek socialist party came to power and began spending money like the proverbial drunken sailor. Ultimately, the Conservative Party returned to power promising to return to the good aged days of balanced budgets, or at least moderately balanced budgets. But conservatives have changed. Instead of throwing out the wasteful socialists, the conservatives simply embraced the socialists’ New Economy. Conservatives thought they had learned how to stay in office for years and spent money like crazy. They made socialists look miserly. Both sides competed with each other to hand over the country, and in the blink of an eye, Greece became the bomb of Europe.
Who is to blame, socialists or conservatives? I would blame the conservatives. Socialists should be bribing the electorate with nonsense about benefits, and they are doing it. Conservatives are expected to practice conservatism. Instead, they joined the socialists in the race to bankrupt the country. As a result, both sides contributed to the resulting debauchery.
After several weeks of delicious meals and visiting wonderful temples and other archaic monuments, I returned to America. There I discovered – to my surprise – that America was re-electing a significant number of drunken sailors. In an election in which our socialists should have won, we allowed too many to remain in office. They will continue to spend money we don’t have and fuel inflation that bites into our wallets. This means we will spend money we don’t need to fuel the same inflation that the electorate says is ruining our economy. A majority of the electorate in the last election complained that inflation was their greatest fear. When sleepy Joe Biden brags about the money he has spent, he is bragging about the inflation he is causing.
The whole country hasn’t gone crazy while I’ve been gone. Florida citizens led by example in statewide elections. The same was true for citizens of Georgia, Ohio and North Carolina. In fact, the electorate of most of the Midwest, the South, and the Cowboy West was great. But spendthrifts in California, much of New York, and many coastal states got by like modern-day Greeks. Imagine if you allocated a trillion dollars for mostly nonsense in the “Inflation Reduction Act.” What would Orwell say?
Our problem is not just our politics. This is our culture. Before a country commits political suicide, it commits cultural suicide, or at least cultural stupidity. The stupidity of the last election began in the tardy 1960s with the coat and tie radicals. A generation ago, people realized where inflation came from. This resulted from too much money chasing too few goods. In the last election, Republicans largely told the electorate where inflation comes from and how to defeat it. The electorates of California, New York and several other states have been distracted by Donald Trump, abortion and other ephemeral issues. Most of the electorate was focused on the right issue, but a significant number of them lost focus when it came time to vote. As a result, inflation will continue for a long time. To make matters worse, the Coat and Tie radicals have been replaced by a modern generation. They call themselves the Awakened. They are even more extreme than the coat and tie radicals.
Glory to Ukraine!
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and most recently author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
