Trying to stop the war in Ukraine, spreading fear among conservative politicians and carrying out diplomacy with North Korea, as the U.S. president did in his first term, all earn points.
U.S. President Donald Trump with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, back to camera, at the White House on Feb. 28. Vice President J.D. Vance on right. (White House / Flickr )
I’ve written before that, just before the November 2024 presidential election I happened to be in Greece visiting relatives, and I was struck by how excited everyone was about the prospect of Donald Trump being elected president again. I say that I was struck because my Greek relatives have been socialists and communists for generations.
Indeed, our ancestral island of Rhodes is known as a bastion of Eurosocialism. And a late cousin, Paraskos Parassos, was a longtime member of the politburo of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) representing the Dodecanese Islands. How, then, could lifelong leftists justify support for an American politician credibly accused in his own country of fascist or authoritarian tendencies? The answer is, actually, not terribly complicated.
First, we have all heard through the years that politics makes strange bedfellows. That’s not just in the United States. We see it all around the world. And Greece is no stranger to political alliances of convenience. In the late 1980s, for example, the conservative New Democracy (ND) Party formed a political alliance with the KKE, marking the first time in the country’s history that the communists were part of a governing coalition. And it actually worked.
Second, many leftists, not just in Greece, but around Europe, feel pushed out of the political process. Sure, there are mini-Trumps running governments in Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, just to name a few places, but what many Americans see as right-wing populism is seen in Europe as, simply, populism. It’s a fight for the little guy. And the little guy wants a voice.
Third, Greeks of all political varieties are tired of wave after wave of undocumented migrants and refugees flooding into the country from Turkey. (The European Union pays Turkey billions of euros to hold these intending migrants in camps in Turkey. The Turks happily take the money and then, under cover of darkness, put the migrants in boats or in trucks overland to Greece.) Greece has never had tent cities of immigrants and refugees before. But now they seem to be everywhere.
Fourth, Greek leftists absolutely hate the war in Ukraine. That’s not to say that they’re pro-Russian. They aren’t. They’re just tired of war and they hate that the Greek government has jumped into the Ukraine camp with money and materiel.
Gaza is another issue. Greek views on Israel and the Palestinians is complicated. For decades the Greeks were vocal supporters of Palestine and of pan-Arabism. Why? Because Turkey, Greece’s mortal enemy, was historically pro-Israel. But that changed about 20 years ago. When Ankara under Recep Tayyip Erdogan switched sides, cut ties to Israel and announced his support for the Palestinians, the Greeks switched sides too, announcing that they would be Israel’s best friend in Europe. That’s been good for the Greek economy, as Israeli investment has flowed in. But it’s been terrible from a moral perspective, and the Palestinians feel betrayed.
I happen to have a cousin who is the governor of Greece’s Dodecanese Islands, including our island of Rhodes, one of Greece’s top three tourist destinations. He’s a member of the Panhellenic Socialist Party, and he told me something last week that I found to be fascinating. He asked me if I had seen Donald Trump’s press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance dressed down the Ukrainian and humiliated him on global television.
My cousin said that leftists loved the performance, even if it was likely preplanned as a setup. But they loved it, he said, not because they necessarily hate Zelensky. They loved it because “every conservative politician in Europe is now worried that Trump will humiliate them, too.” They’re afraid of Trump’s unpredictability and of his harsh treatment of an ally. They’re afraid that they could be next. The leftists love the confusion.
I want to be clear that I’m not saying that the European left’s embrace of Trump is good or bad. I’m just saying that it’s a thing. The European left doesn’t care one whit about domestic American politics. They care about American foreign policy. And if an American president is willing to put a stop to the war in Ukraine or to carry out diplomacy with a dictator like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, as Trump did in his first term, European leftists are excited to go along for the ride.
John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Upon reflection, this piece says a lot about politics. Notice how people’s views are decided for them? One example is the discussion of the Greeks, the Turks, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Greece’s “view” is the opposition to Turkey. Like all politics of these modern times, it is the Politics of Hate. Greeks Hate Turks, so Greece must do the opposite of Turkey. Turkey gets close to Israel, Greeks support Palestine. Turk relations with Israel go downhill, Greeks start to love Israel.
The same is seen in America. The strange confusion seen in the headline about the Left supporting Trump. Because, in America, the constant slogan of The Left has been for the last three election cycles “Hate Trump.” That is the entire political content of Leftist thought in America. Hate Trump. The entire political platform of the Left has been Hate Trump. Therefore, the confusion, how can EU “leftists” support Trump?
Hey, try thinking on your own for a change. Put in some noise-cancelling earplugs, and just look at the world with open and honest eyes, and decide what makes sense to you? Turn off the other voices and think for yourself. Do you really want to be controlled by the Hate you’ve been taught?
Voting for Varoufakis and his party was a huge mistake. They ran on a platform of opposition. Then, they turned, what the German Greens would call a “360 degree turn”, and negotiated with the EU bankers and forced the Banker’s Austerity down the throats of their own people. They promised they would do no such thing, then turned around and did exactly that. They ruled against the People until the People had learned not to vote for these folks. Varoufakis was key in talking with the Bankers, but then jumped ship relatively early, so he now forgets his service to the oligarchs and pretends opposition.
“Don’t follow leaders. Beware of parking meters.” – Bob Dylan
It is a strange thing to stand in one place in American politics, and let the politics revolve around you.
In 1999, I was pro-free speech, anti-globalization, and anti-war. By 1999, the Democrats, with the DLC and the greedy corporate Clintons were already marching away from me and my positions. By 2000, I was one of many who said that “I did not leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.”
Today, the Democrats have marched far over the horizon and are out of sight on all three issues. The Democrats are anti-free speech, pro-globalization, and pro-war. The anti-Democracy within the Democratic Party doesn’t even allow organizing or voices that oppose the Mega-Donors on these issues.
Meanwhile, strangely enough, the formerly anti-free speech, pro-globilization, pro-war Republicans have come from over the horizon seeming to march towards me. But of course, their politics also including Locking Up anyone who disagrees with them, so I can tell how much their claims of Free Speech are worth. Of course any movement that believes in Freedom is opposed to Locking People Up. And I can see their bellicose, belligerent, bullying Leaders who don’t look anything like the path of Peace that I once learned from Dr. King’s followers in trainings on non-violence and de-escalation.
But one thing is for certain, there is no place for an antiwar position in today’s corporate controlled, Identity-focused, pro-war, bomb the world to pieces, left. Maybe it someone wants to restart a traditional Left that is a party of the People, not the oligarchs, and which would believe in Solidarity and Equality and Resistance?
The pro business and cut social programs may be promoted in our foreign policy along with trying to increase wasted resources on military spending proposed despite a professed anti-war attitude and the increasing impact of trade sanctions go along with the problems to too many immigrant refugees.. Moving from war to economic war may not be very helpful.
I always read Kiriakou’s articles. They invariably provide perspectives or angles I was unaware of. As Mr. Kiriakou states, it’s not a question of good or bad, or for or against, it’s just good to be reminded that people in other countries do not see things the same way we do, and are struggling with different problems and issues. This should be self-evident, but it’s not.
This is excellent reporting and evaluation bringing the way local and regional forces design perspectives and fitting that understanding into geopolitics.
Political terms have been turned on their heads in recent decades: what does “left” even mean anymore?
The so-called left in other EU countries, and the UK are pro-war, pro-oligarchy, and anti-labor. WTF?
Just a quick reminder: like the JB regime, the DT2 regime is anti-labor, pro-Genocide, pro-oligarchy. anti-free speech, and highly authoritarian. The DT2 regime illegally deports legal residents, and threatens US citizens if they use their right of free speech to oppose genocide, funded by our public resources.
Also, are we really that gullible to believe the latest attempts at “peace” are genuine? The DT2 regime bombed Yemen and will continue, they continue to support Israel and the genocide, and the latest phony attempt at “peace” in Ukraine was ridiculous on its face. There is no ceasefire. The US continues to aid Ukraine. The sanctions continue…
The Greek “left” are about as useless as the so-called right. Ask Yanis Varoufakis, he knows all about it from the inside.
i know Jonny. it’s a topsy-turvy travesty. i don’t understand anything any more. we are sorely in need of, i don’t know what. because i don’t know what will help the planet in her hour of need.
certainly not homo sapiens. (except a few like Varoufakis. He’s a great guy.)
The most telling thing is when the modern Left rants against Populism.
Populism is the politics of the People. Populism is the Politics of the People, by the People, and for the People. It is fascinating to listen to the modern Left declare their complete and utter hatred of the People and what the People might want. Even a horrendous fascist like Goering understood, in his famous Nuremberg interview before he escaped the hangman’s noose with a suicide capsule, that ordinary people are opposed to war. That ordinary people do not have anything to gain from war. Even a fascist understood this, but today’s Democrats do not. Or just don’t care.
The modern Left is a movement of the Elites, and they use Identity, to cover this with a fake Left facade. If you look closely, the Left now hates the People and opposes the People on almost every issue, while backing the Bankers and the Generals. There’s only the fake of some opposition, to keep people with functioning souls within this party of the oligarchs and loyally voting pro-oligarch in every election.
The Democrats are so out of touch with the People, so against the People, that they are still surprised that their campaign promising more War, more Inflation, less Free Speech, more Globilization, and the Rich forever getting much, much Richer was somehow not supported by the People. The Democrats are so confused that they see this as racism.