Recent American presidents have held up Poland as a beacon of freedom and democracy in the post-Soviet era. Of all the former Communist bloc states in Eastern Europe, Poland most closely resembles the United States—a nation of freedom-loving, working-class religious people. And as…
Recent American presidents have held up Poland as a beacon of freedom and democracy in the post-Soviet era. Of all the former Communist bloc states in Eastern Europe, Poland most closely resembles the United States—a nation of freedom-loving, working-class religious people. And as Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton did before him, President Donald Trump will deliver a public address in Warsaw praising the example of the Polish nation.
Whereas these past presidents have used the opportunity to demonstrate how Poland exemplifies universal values, Trump’s speech is likely to elevate Poland’s own fully formed national identity as a value in and of itself. The speech, written by Trump’s nationalist aide Stephen Miller, will compare Poland’s nationally self-confident view to what the president perceives as the more globalist view espoused by Western European leaders.
Fittingly, Trump is joined in this view by Jarslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party. Kaczynski’s party is nationalist, populist, and right-wing—so much so that their slogan could well be “Make Poland Great Again.” As such, Kaczynski and the Polish government have pulled out all the stops for Trump, promising him a crowd of thousands in Warsaw and state-media coverage for his address.
As Polish journalist Bartosz T. Wielinski writes in the New York Times, the Poland of 2017 is “vastly different” from the country where Obama, Bush, and Clinton spoke. Wielinski argues that the current government has caused Poland to “ [abandon] the path of democracy and the rule of law.”
There’s plenty of evidence to support this claim. Within a month of taking power in late 2015, Law and Justice lawmakers pushed through legislation to allow parliament to appoint the management of the public TV and radio broadcasters—in order to halt criticism of the government. Here’s the Financial Times:
“Over the past few weeks. . we have had to deal with the extremely unreliable work of the public media, ” said Ryszard Terlecki, head of Law and Justice’s parliamentary caucus, referencing coverage of national protests against steps taken by the new government.
“It means that we must now hurry, ” Mr Terlecki said, referring to his hopes that the new law could be passed on Tuesday evening. “If the media criticises our changes . we have to stop it. Public media are not involved in party political disputes, they should just accurately inform the public.”
The Polish government has also tightened laws governing public gatherings and protests and reorganized the country’s constitutional courts along partisan grounds.
Wielinski’s op-ed appears to have aroused the ire of Polish state media. A mash-up video posted by Wielinski on Twitter features several journalists and commentators on state TV discussing the Times article. Washington Post columnist Anne Appelbaum, who speaks Polish and is married to a Polish politician, said on Twitter that those in the video refer to Wielinski’s op-ed as “not just treason, but [a] ‘modern version of Nazi collaboration.’ ”
