Originally published at: Pro-Trump Candidate Wins Poland’s Presidential Election—A Bad Omen For The EU, Ukraine And Women
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. Poland’s presidential election runoff will be a bitter pill for pro-European Union democrats to swallow. The nationalist, Trumpian, historian Karol Nawrocki has narrowly defeated the liberal, pro-EU mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, 50.89 to 49.11%. The…
I fear this will prove to be another example of “when a moderate centrist wins a close election, governs in an overly cautious manner; when an extremist ghoul wins a close election, immediately causes as much havoc as the post and system will allow”.
Good news. Let them fuck it up in advance.
This is about the unions being destroyed to defund the working people’s representation.
Now, soon, who gives a shit. The more power they get, the stupider they look.
Et tu, Poland?
Can you expand on “unions being destroyed”? During the vote counting yesterday one analyst said the vote from Gdansk was expected to heavily favor the right winger for reasons. But Gdansk was the port city that Lech Walesa’s Solidarinosk movement started from. He enlarged and used the power of the dock workers union to push the Democracy movement forward right?
It’s distressing to see Poland elect a far right demagogue, and it reveals not every country looks at the U.S. under the lawless and corrupt Trump regime and recoils in horror.
Sigh.
Wasn’t Kristi fucking Noem just over there shilling for him? We are fully and totally fucked when someone like her has influence like this. OMG …
What is happening in the USA, gaining power in a democracy by uniting the worst of the worst, is happening globally.
At least 35% of everyone, in every nation in the world are whack jobs. In many nations it is over 50%.
While this is a problem for all democracies, historically the whack jobs have been split between different political groups/Parties. That is one of the reasons democracy has worked is that the worst of us have been as divided as everyone else.
However, a recent development, as we have seen in the USA, is that politicians have found ways to unite the whack jobs like Republicans have done by combining working class racist religious bigots with billionaires.
The ability of immoral politicians being able to unite the worst of us is threatening everyone everywhere and not just in America.
This was a runoff election between the centrist Civic Platform party and the conservative Law and Justice party.
In the first round, the far-right Konfederacja party came out first among both 18-29 year-olds and 30-39 year-olds. Apparently, there is a backlash against the EU’s migrant policy, with younger Poles seeing migrants as competing for jobs and social services. In the past, Russia and Belarus have dumped migrants into Poland to stoke this fear. Konfederacja also used social media memes/slogans to appeal to young voters, and did especially well among young men living outside the big cities.
The rise of the Right globally has been in the absence of a funded Left. I’ve been watching this since the Clyde shipbuilders were driven out of business.
Lech was great in the 80s, but if you think there isn’t a single cent in this world that hasn’t gone into fewer and fewer hands since then, I don’t know what to tell you.
The same people that drove manufacturing out of the West bought up media companies with it, and are now trained on the real cash pile in this world - the taxpayer.
Pro-Trump? If he is as cozy with Putin that Trump is, I’d say its the Poles who should be worried. Ukraine is the appetizer and Poland will be the entree.
Theres no war if you betray your home and surrender in advance. Art of the deal as they say.
This is really the story of the rural voter. The EU has supported non-EU Ukraine’s farmers at the expense of Polish farmers. This policy has been winding down, but many still remember the border blockades and Russian interference with Ukraine grain exports via the Black Sea that forced Ukraine to turn west for its farm product exports. Ukraine should be in the EU and NATO. It would definitely take pressure off Poland, which has borne the brunt of the war’s economic costs. The result map shows that eastern Poland and rural areas were the supporting areas of the country. This close result should not surprise Americans. We have seen similar rural backlashes. Poland even today has several million Ukrainian war refugees in its midst.
Last time I was in Poland a young man told me he was leaving because there were no jobs even for well educated people. Actually it usually comes down to people making a living rather than strict ideology.
Where are the Ukrainian refugees? Could that have influenced rural voters?