It turns out being in power while unemployment skyrockets towards 30 percent is not so great for one’s political prospects. PASOK did not just lose, it has been essentially destroyed — falling from 38 percent of the vote in 2009 to less than 5 percent this year.

This matters not at all to Europe’s ruling class, however, where the democratic will of sovereign nations is nothing but an irritating formality. When he mentioned Greece’s referendum in a Eurogroup meeting, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis reported this response: “How do you expect common people to understand such complex issues?”

As Matt Yglesias notes, at this point other nations are probably of greater concern to the European elite. If Greece elects a bunch of angry leftists who manage to extract some concessions and an eventual economic recovery, that would send a problematic message to the other struggling eurozone nations like Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Greece must be cudgeled into cringing subordination — or if it leaves the euro, it must be as brutal an experience as possible, so as to put fear into the hearts of anyone else who would question elite hegemony.

That seems to be the ultimate endpoint of European post-democracy. Eurozone elites were too stupid or insane to avoid crushing Spain and Greece (and every member of the eurozone to some extent, even Germany) with austerity and tight money.