A story in the Spanish media recently caught my attention, in which Jürgen Donges, advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, compared to Hitler MEP Pablo Iglesias, leader of the new Spanish party Podemos, which is poised to win a majority this year. In an interview published on Sunday by La Sexta, Donges argued that, “in Germany, we had someone telling us nice things and people said, ‘this Hitler, he will calm things down.’” He claimed that Iglesias, “like Hitler, is capitalizing on social disillusionment and disappointment.” This statement was made in tandem with an underhanded compliment directed at Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose Syriza party, Donges said, “at least has political experience.” These insults to the allied populist parties are still less incredible than the context in which they took place…

The issue of debt

Donges’ remarks are especially off color as German officials refuse to even discuss Tsipras’ demand that the country repay €160 billion in unpaid debts incurred during the Nazi invasion and occupation of Greece during WWII. That amount could halve the Greek national debt. So, on the one hand we have Germany continuing, in defiance of reason, to insist Greece pay back a national debt that renders it effectively bankrupt; meanwhile, German tabloid BILD, entering the sordid territory of shock comedy, sprawls the words “NO to More Billions for Greedy Greeks” across its cover. Yet, in contrast, Germany reckons itself exempt from its own debts.

At every opportunity its leadership scapegoats and demeans fellow EU members for, essentially, lacking their own privilege as the central economy which the euro area underpins. Merkel’s administration willfully ignores the real problems that have hampered European economies by contributing massively to national debts: an international banking system that nationalizes risk while privatizing reward, and the inequality and unemployment inherent to such a system. Instead, not only do they obstinately demand that economies sustaining 25% unemployment pay the criminal debts of their cocktail party buddies in banking, they further dictate that this be done on the backs of workers already facing cuts. This is not democratic, to meddle in the domestic policy of another country.

The issue of fascism

As usual, it is the insult to injury that remains especially distasteful. And I cannot think of a greater insult than Donges’ slander of Iglesias, a Leftist whose family risked confrontation with the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco (who seized power with the aid of the man to whom Iglesias is compared). Still, this personal insult is not the most offensive aspect of Donges’ attack. Rather, it is that he seems utterly disinterested with the genuine danger of fascism in Europe today. Crippling austerity is being imposed by foreign officials upon several European countries, whose people are in turn offered no recourse even as they face massive unemployment, insecurity, and dwindling hope for the future; these conditions often do abet fascist parties. The kernel of truth in Donges’ claim is that “social disillusionment and disappointment” could indeed be seized upon by fascists.

But here lies a dangerous contradiction: German leaders’ interests require them to overlook the pitfalls which litter the path they lead Europe down, as they busily obscure any vision of safer, alternative routes. Despite harsh conditions, the European people as represented by Franceⁱ, Greece and, if all goes well, Spain and Ireland, have so far avoided the trap of racist nationalism into which Ukraine, NATO’s pet, is falling.² As Iglesias has rhetorically asked, would Merkel rather sit down with him, or with (leader of the French Front National party, Marine) Le Pen?

Bankrupt austerity politics

It goes without saying that Iglesias is not comparable in any way to the former German Chancellor; rather, it is Podemos that could protect Spain from such a fate if, once elected, the German leadership and the European Central Bank negotiate with Spain in good faith. The Spanish people are indeed disillusioned and disappointed with their complicit leaders, as living standards continue to deteriorate. Austerity has failed. It has addressed neither the causes nor the effects of the global economic crisis, as the Left always argued would be the case. Worse, austerity is only one piece of an international neoliberal economic framework which has us racing toward yet another crisis of overaccumulation, this time with even fewer resources and less economic sovereignty to mitigate it.

While neoliberal parties worldwide, both center-right and center-left, claim to support the democratic principle, they consistently respond to the will of the electorate with inane ad hominems; the global media peeks out from the pockets of bankers only to exhort the people to fear each other. “Political experience” has done nothing to democratize or stabilize European economies. Luckily, the corruption of political officials has yet to become the corruption of the demos.

The demos versus capital

This is why Donges’ comparison is so disingenuous. What he truly fears is that Iglesias’ popularity — like that of Alexis Tsipras — will enable Podemos to gain a majority in the upcoming Spanish elections and carry out the will of their people. Iglesias refers to this simply as “politics,” a practice the Left has neglected in recent history: to speak with the people in their own terms; “to establish the connection between the reality [the Left has] diagnosed and what the majority actually feels.”

The people are suffering profoundly from the abuses of capital, and they need a power in their corner. This was once the function of labor unions, but neoliberalism has no space for unions; in their place is offered the mere politics of image, of identity, and this is why Iglesias’ popularity is critical. The political terrain was left open while unions were rendered obsolete because the ideology of capital, as espoused by the global media, was for so long the common sense of an apathetic yet polarized public. Consequently, the Left was not able to garner enough support to be a political threat. But this neoliberal phase of capitalism has contorted within its own contradiction to such a degree that it can no longer speak coherently to the masses (hence the nonsensical insult).

The Indignados united

The interests of austerity would have us scapegoat each other, but there is an alternative: to recognize that our interests are related, and therefore our action should be united. This is what the Indignados movement³ achieved, and this is why the Podemos party — which arose not from a pit of nationalism, but from Puerta del Sol square — is such a threat to the interests served by austerity politics. Iglesias describes the potential the Left today:

“The enemy wants us small, with a language that nobody understands; wants us as a minority; wants us refuged in our traditional symbols. They are delighted, because they know that this way, we aren’t a danger. … But when you gather hundreds, thousands of people, when suddenly what you are saying convinces the majority, even the ones who voted for the enemy, then they start to fear, and that is called politics.”

This is the real reason that Donges and his class finds him so dangerous, because Iglesias understood that the lesson of the Indignados movement was that “most people are against capitalism and they don’t know it.” And he is telling them, in their own words.