My blog

Populists led by Jarosław, from the party with the perverse name of Law and Justice, have been ruling us for over five years. Despite noticeable fatigue with the burden of power and the family quarrels observed in recent months, there is no indication that they will give up this power anytime soon. Considering the mess they have made in Poland, their polls look excellent, and after each drop in ratings caused by another prank, sooner or later they return to normal like a Russian wanka - wstawa. In addition to all this, their good mood is enhanced by the awareness that they have no one to lose to, thanks to a shallow and uncooperative opposition that can only focus on criticizing them or stopping its own agony.

I thought it would be worth taking a closer look at the tools our populist leaders used to gain and maintain power, and letting our imagination run wild a bit about possible scenarios for its end.

Manipulation. When on a frosty day, a mother says to her child, “Put on a hat or you’ll freeze your ears,” thinking that it’s too cold to go without a hat, it’s a sign of concern for the child, but when she says to her child, “Put on a hat or you’ll freeze your ears,” hoping that the whole village will notice her new purchase, then she’s manipulating her child. In short, manipulation occurs when we trick others into unconsciously achieving our goals, or, in other words, when what we say contradicts our true intentions. Judges steal drills from supermarkets, drive cars in good condition, take pendrives and candy bars from stores. Judges are criminals and that’s why they need to be replaced. Manipulation is the older sister of fraud, only more sophisticated.

Symmetry. This is a clever tool that equalizes the scale of phenomena whose scales are incomparable, in order to cover up one's own incompetence and divert attention from one's own mistakes. A preschooler, asked by the teacher "why did you hit Johnny," will quickly answer "because he was playing with my toy car." A representative of our current government, asked about the poor organization of the vaccination process, will quickly change the subject to the scandalous vaccination of celebrities out of turn.

Dressing in someone else's feathers. They say that family is the greatest value to them, and yet they themselves cheat and divorce on a large scale. They say that they are guided by the highest moral standards, but they employ incompetent members of their families. They say that they are ruthless in pursuing criminals and tracking down scandals, and in their environment there are notorious scams and embezzlement on an unprecedented scale. Former minister Emilewicz, until recently spoke about the ethics of entrepreneurship and complained about the tendency of Poles to scheme, and a few days ago she took her children skiing, confabulating about their ski licenses, necessary for training at a time when the slopes were closed to amateurs due to the pandemic. Falsehood, duplicity, hypocrisy or simply hypocrisy.

Pretending to be a patriot. They misunderstand patriotism. It is not building a triumphal arch on the Vistula, calling most institutions "national", romancing nationalists or building a central airport near Łódź.

Incitement. They are specialists in the field of incitement, incitement and incitement. Because homosexuals break up families and sexualize children, because refugees spread germs, because doctors are lazy, because teachers demand the impossible, because judges steal, because the disabled want too much.

Anti-elitism. They present themselves as true representatives of the people, understanding the problems of the common man, exploited, robbed and disrespected, the only ones who are able to defend the common man from the attempts of the elites. In the meantime and quietly they have become a new elite, detached from reality, which is allowed more, which operates on special laws and based on its own principles.

Buying votes. They give away money that is not theirs in exchange for votes. The bills are mounting. Someday we will all pay for this.

Populism has become well-established in many civilized countries of the world - in most countries there are smaller or larger populist parties, taking advantage of people's disappointment with the elites and economic crises, offering easy and quick solutions to problems.

Fortunately, there are still few countries in which populists hold full power, and what's more, their number will decrease by one in a few days, with the end of Donald Trump's rule, who, as befits a true populist, is reluctant to part with the office of president.

We, Poles, have our own populist, who has been in absolute power since 2015. We have been deceived by him and believe that he will improve our fate and make Poland a better place.
You, who are reading these words, have probably not been fooled and think, as I do, that Kaczyński is a pest who will not only not make Poland better, but will leave scorched earth in his wake. You do not therefore belong to the large group of his followers, beneficiaries, supporters or simply those who keep their fingers crossed for him. Depending on various estimates, this group includes from 30 to 50 percent of our society.

The problem is that the remaining group – 50 to 70 percent of society – are not all opponents of the current government. If that were the case, the results of the last presidential and parliamentary elections would have been completely different. I would identify three subgroups in this group. The first are those who don't care or don't care. The second subgroup are those who don't care, but their actions related to the replacement of the government with another will be limited only to throwing a ballot into the ballot box in three years. The third subgroup are those who are active. This could be participation in demonstrations, activity in a political party, or even writing posts on Facebook. I can't estimate the percentage of Poles in these three subgroups. However, I am convinced that the first subgroup is the most numerous, and the last one – the least.

Over the past year, I have felt several times that the end of populist rule in Poland was coming. Before the presidential elections, I was almost convinced that the elections would be the first act of this end. However, this did not happen.

Today I think differently. I think that PiS will govern for a long time. And not because it is Teflon, but because we Poles simply want it that way. I do not believe all these journalistic speculations about the tipping of the scales, changes in the minds of Poles and the imminent end of this government. PiS is like Poland, and Poland is like PiS.

I think the end of this government can only come as a result of one of the following two scenarios.

The first scenario is PiS tripping over its own feet or playing into its own goal. Once, thanks to Gowin and the second time, thanks to Ziobro, it seemed that we were a hair's breadth away from that. However, this scenario seems unlikely to me, because sinecures are too important for the activists.

The second scenario is Kaczyński's departure from politics. I think that regardless of how Kaczyński arranges everything before his departure, the ruling camp will not be able to maintain its integrity after the leader leaves. A bit like a sect that falls apart when the father leader is gone. In an interview for a right-wing magazine, Kaczyński revealed that he intends to retire at the age of 75, in about 4 years. So we have to arm ourselves with patience.