MAGA, McCarthy and an immigrant from Constantinople
In their endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, the New York Times editorial board chose as a title for their article, “The Only Patriotic Choice for President.” As the NYT is widely considered to be one of the most influential news sources in the world, it would be worthwhile to think about that overused and often misunderstood word, “patriotic.”
The word has had a complicated past, as complex as European civilization itself. A quick study of its derivation from the Greek “patrios” and “patris,” and later to medieval times and then to the Enlightenment, shows the development and complexity of the concept of patriotism. Its history is fascinating and often surprising.
Today, the word is defined, very simply here, as love of one’s country. One group of people who must ponder it often are those who have come to America as immigrants, who have left their homelands for a better life, for freedom from autocracy, from dictatorships in many forms, and for vast opportunity. Very often we see new members of American society embracing patriotism, which should mean to them, in part, belief in and support of the rule of law, upholding the Constitution, respecting the democratic process and much more. But what happens when the ruling majority and their leaders begin to demand loyalty to party over country, when threats of expulsion begin and when individual freedom of choice is imperiled?
This past summer, several friends of mine, young immigrant Greeks in America, mentioned to me the effect on them of the words “send them home.” This fear is becoming apparent now in several European nations – in Austria and Hungary, for example – but nowhere is it more apparent than in the US. We are increasingly witnessing startling rhetoric coming from the leaders of the new Republican party. I say new, and I believe we all know why. The GOP is simply no longer recognizable.
Of course the “new right,” doesn’t only target immigrants. This is a complex sort of hatred and bias. Being of a darker color may be enough to spark the ugliness, or even having an odd-sounding name. The political framework to remove “the problem” involves accusations of lack of patriotism, even of treason. And the result of the accusations can become catastrophic.
The phenomenon is not new, but it re-emerged during the presidency of Donald Trump when such accusations and political labeling became normalized. The attacks are not only aimed at the poor and uneducated. Resistance comes at a cost and makes the words of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch even more poignant.
Yovanovitch, whose parents fled the Soviet Union, came, via Canada, to the US at age 18. When called to testify during the impeachment proceedings in Congress against then-president Donald Trump, she told the truth about the situation in Ukraine regarding the conspiracy to target Joe Biden. She did this despite great pressure and then a smear campaign from the Trump White House. The ambassador was summarily fired by Trump, but her words led to his impeachment.
What she said was this: “I did – we did – what our conscience called us to do. We did what the gift of US citizenship requires us to do.”
This gift of US citizenship is becoming increasingly threatened. Immigrants and their families are targeted in so many ways. The vice president and Democratic presidential nominee is repeatedly mocked for being Black and Indian. Barack Obama was attacked for years by those who questioned his birthplace and, because of his name, his possible connections to Islam. US citizens, members of Congress, whose families hail from other countries are told to “go home.”
But also other epithets are thrown around. What we are hearing daily from the GOP-turned-MAGA groups is name-calling using labels such as “communists,” “socialists,” even “Stalinists.” Trump and his followers now refer to the Democratic nominee for president as “Comrade Kamala.” Trump still holds the narrative. Even Harris sadly refers to the last nine years as “the Trump era.”
Most Americans think that this dangerous radicalization is a new phenomenon. It isn’t. America went through a previous horrific stage during the McCarthy era.
I often think of my father, Achilles Sakellarides, who, with his family, fled as a boy from then-Constantinople in 1922. He always told me how welcomed they felt in the US by not only the Greek community, but by Americans who became friends. He worked hard at various odd jobs and through scholarships he attended Lehigh and then Princeton, where he received his PhD. His beloved America had given him everything. He thought.
As he was leaving for Stanford, where he was offered a position teaching political science and international law, the Department of State made an offer and he accepted.
He was a rising star at State. After a short while, his superiors strongly suggested that he change or at least shorten his name, which he did. Our new name became Sakell.
All was well for a few years until a man named Joseph McCarthy (senator from 1947-1957) appeared on the scene and began destroying careers, and even lives, with one word, one accusation: “Communist.” McCarthy served on the House Un-American Activities Committee. The witch hunts and the chaos engulfed all fields of life. It didn’t matter if the accusations were true or not. Government officials, intellectuals and Hollywood actors and producers were taken down by McCarthy in the months and years that followed. People were blacklisted and destroyed. My father, for a while, was one.
Speaking about the State Department, McCarthy publicly stated, “While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who are members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205.”
Truth was important to my father, as was his respect for his new country, the checks and balances system, and service to the nation. At a State Department meeting, he commented that McCarthy’s claim about the card-carrying Communists was nonsense. My dad was reported and dismissed. Just like that.
My elderly grandparents were living with my parents and my mother was pregnant with me. Everyone was dependent on my father. He often told me how he would get dressed every morning in his suit and leave the house, not wishing to tell his elderly parents that he was suddenly unemployed. My grandparents had borne enough tragedy when their daughter died while they were forced to flee then-Constantinople.
The beginning of the end of the era came when the United States Army itself was accused by McCarthy. Investigations began in what was known as the Army-McCarthy hearings. The chief counsel for the US Army, Joseph Nye Welch, confronted McCarthy, at which time he famously asked, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
McCarthy died in shame. But so many years were lost, so many people hurt.
My father was finally reinstated at the Department of State and given complete tenure. He received awards, including the Department’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and was promoted to inspector of worldwide US foreign economic-and military-assistance programs of the Department of State.
The US elections are less than a month away. The polls fluctuate, but are showing a razor-close race. The Republican candidate has promised retribution and revenge and his chosen VP told a conservative podcast in 2021 that Trump should fire “every single civil servant in the administrative state and replace them with our people.” The words “our people” should have no place in America.
When fundamentalists of any political party redefine patriotism to mean devotion to the party instead of to the principles of the nation, when in America the hallowed system of checks and balances is overturned, when the values of any one religion are forced upon the people, this is when democracy dies.
Here in Athens, I am often asked by Greek friends, students, taxi drivers, students and intellectuals, “How did this happen in America?” It happened. And America must be protected from it happening again.
Tenia Christopoulos is a freelance writer from Washington, DC, who lives in Athens. She is a contributor to Kathimerini, The Washington Post, Athens Insider Magazine and Tatler, and is the author of “Lords of the Dance.”
