What will the Democrats or the Republicans do for Greece? Which candidate will be better on national issues? These questions are repeated every four years before US elections. The reality is particularly simple: in America, in the midst of an election season, no one wakes up to this misery. On the other hand, the influence of the Greek-American community is not negligible.
Numerically, Greek-Americans are not many, but they are scattered everywhere. And that certainly counts in swing states that actually hold the keys to the election. In fact, the candidates are more interested in the money of the Greek-American businessmen than in the votes.
After all, it is natural that donations play an important role in a pre-election contest where there is a dance of millions. And of course equally important is the social capital of successful Greek-American professionals who have acquaintances and whose opinion counts.
The question from then on is how they are used in the direction of specific commitments. This presupposes two main things. The first is that the mediators, who have access to the key persons, have as their main priority to raise the Greek issues. And beyond that, to have the necessary knowledge to not allow the various candidates to slip away, giving the feeling that they are covering us without having promised anything concrete.
Communities for democracy
In this year’s elections, the report looks poor compared to good years, such as 2008, when issues of Greek interest were included in the platform of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. This year there hasn’t even been a single statement.
The complete lack of stigma can be seen in both election campaigns. For example, her election campaign Kamala Harris organized a digital event for the Greek-American community. Although the speakers were the lieutenant governor of California Eleni Kounalakithe Nevada congresswoman Dina Titus and the expatriate co-chair of the campaign finance committee Christine Bertolina-Faustmostly platitudes about democracy and Greece were said.
A letter of support for Harris prepared by prominent members of the community, which speaks more about the values than the political essence of the future of Greek-American relations, moves along a similar wavelength.
Throw the ball into the platform
THE Richard Grenell he is considered the diplomat of his special missions Donald Trump. Next to him is the Greek-American Christos Marafatso, who, starting from the bottom in Trump’s 2016 election campaign, has managed to rise and be able to promote Greek issues. Marafatsos was the main coordinator of a Greek fundraiser event held in Philadelphia last Wednesday with Grenell as the keynote speaker and attended by “To Vima”.
It is common for American diplomats to throw the ball on the podium when asked about Turkey. So when Grenell was asked by “To Vima” about how he sees relations with Turkey or if he intends to support the sale of advanced weapons to Ankara without any change in its revisionist policy, he replied that they are currently focused on the elections. In another question about Greek-American relations, he recalled his old feud with her Angela Merkel and began blaming her for the EU’s immigration policy.
To questions about whether the US would continue to support ongoing energy projects in the Eastern Mediterranean, he responded in the light of the “America first” doctrine.
As he explained, he is interested in working with Greece to promote American energy in Europe, without saying a word about the Greece-Cyprus-Israel electrical interconnection project. A reasonable question that should be answered to the Greek-American public is whether they would like to see the production of Constellation frigates done exclusively in America or in partnership with Greece.
Finally, the most disturbing thing was that Grenell had nothing concrete to say about the positive agenda of Greek-American relations. As incredible as it sounds, when asked about bilateral relations he replied that he would like to throw a party for Trump’s victory in Mykonos. It would probably be better to talk about Souda, which the former foreign minister had visited on his last trip Mike Pompeo.
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