Ryszard Legutko
Daina Le Lardic © European Union 2023 – Source : EP
Prof. Ryszard Legutko is a Polish philosopher, political thinker, and former Minister of Education. He is a Professor of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and a former prominent MEP representing Poland’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. An expert in ancient philosophy and political theory, Legutko is known for his critical stance on liberal democracy and progressive ideology. He is the author of “The Demon in Democracy” and “The Cunning of Freedom”, in which he analyses the parallels between liberalism and communism in modern Europe.
The most obvious result is that the conservative parties managed to halt—for now—the advance of the anti-sovereignist coalition composed of Left and liberal parties. The losing side, until the last moment, believed they would win and hoped to get hold of all instruments of power. With the system being closed, they would have then been free to escalate the persecution of the opposition and to implement all commands and instructions coming from Brussels and Berlin. Poland, alongside Hungary, has the largest and best-organized conservative movement in Europe. Tusk’s attempt to crush this movement would have received not only the blessing of EU institutions and European elites but, if successful, would have been a major step towards the EU’s control over the nation states.
Many Poles feared a version of the Romanian scenario, that is, the annulment of Nawrocki’s victory or at least the continued questioning of the results and, consequently, a slow delegitimization of the president. Signals to that effect, one could hear from the Tusk party even before the elections. Most political observers agree that Ursula von der Leyen’s congratulations to Nawrocki prevented such a development. She was one of the first politicians to congratulate Nawrocki, likely under pressure from the American administration. Trump endorsed Nawrocki in his campaign, met with him in the Oval Office, and Trump’s people made several supportive gestures. Today, amid strained relations between the USA and the EU, an open attack on Nawrocki would have been perceived as a provocative move against the U.S. President.
The fight in Poland and Europe is not over, however. Poland’s presidential campaign reached a new low level of viciousness and aggressive vulgarity. We can now easily predict that this avalanche of dirt and invectives will grow in force after Nawrocki takes office. It is Donald Tusk who, since 2005, has been orchestrating such foul rhetoric and—as incompetent a PM as he is—has proved extremely skilful in spreading venom. Suffice it to say that in the 2023 parliamentary election, the Tusk coalition defeated Law and Justice (PiS) using, on a mass scale, the slogan of “f*****g” the opponents. This campaign, I think, should find its place in political history books as an illustration of how low the European mainstream culture fell in the first decades of the 21st century.
This is not the first time we have seen such forms of a perverted aristocracy in Polish politics, where the rulers openly pour scorn on farmers, workers, and generally, on people living in villages and small towns, practically on everyone who is not quite happy with the march of progress. Not only have the rulers insulted such people, but they have spared no effort to re-educate them, or to raise their consciousness, or make them “new people”. It started right after WWII when the Soviet-backed communists came to power and launched a large-scale operation of oppression and indoctrination with the intention of turning the Poles from the allegedly backward-looking, retrograde victims of the bad old times to the forward-looking Communist-minded new people.
An analogous operation—without communist brutality—was performed after 1989 when the old regime fell and the new rulers of liberal democratic Poland discovered, to their dismay, that their compatriots from low classes were again backward-looking and retrograde and did not understand the new liberal democratic world and, therefore, needed some kind of re-education and the raising of consciousness. This operation has continued until today and was even reinforced when the left-leaning Western mainstream began its anti-family revolution, same-sex marriage, LGBT, abortion, and the like. This new offensive required—as it does in other EU countries—massive indoctrination starting in kindergarten.
The Tusk coalition in Poland espoused this ideology and thus managed to acquire another stick with which to beat the opposition. Those who oppose this ideology are called fascists, bigots, or poor idiots who will sooner or later wind up in the dustbin of history. More and more, this conflict is presented as a clash between those who are enlightened and educated and those who are uneducated scum. But let’s make it clear: to be counted among the enlightened does not depend on real education but on having enlightened views. My friend was asked by a taxi driver whether he was also (!) upset about the election results. “No, I am happy; I voted for Nawrocki,” he said. The taxi driver, apparently flabbergasted, kept silent for a while, and then he asked: “What kind of education do you have?” “I am a university professor,” my friend said. “That can’t be true,” the taxi driver angrily retorted, and the conversation stopped.
This sense of superiority towards ’people’ is characteristic of the Left and the Liberals in general. Both groups know that the past was largely bad and the future will be largely good, and whenever they gain power, they immediately start tracking down the enemies of a better world to come.
From what I observe, I find that highly unlikely. The Tusk coalition did not come to power with a coherent program for reforming Poland. What they do offer boils down to two things: first, a relentless attack on the conservative opposition, especially on the Law and Justice Party, and second, the implementation of whatever comes from Brussels and Berlin.
They are unlikely to abandon the first tactic because it has been a vehicle of their victories. And they can’t afford to abandon the second, because Tusk depends on support and protection from the EU.
The conservative parties in Poland, including Law and Justice, are distancing themselves from the EU and find it a hostile organization with despotic tendencies, controlled by the Left and pursuing the Left’s agenda. What all this ultimately boils down to is a clash between sovereignty and submission. With such a divergence of views, a compromise is hardly possible.
This divergence—it should be noted—is not unique to Poland. In several countries—France and Germany being examples—the conservative, anti-EU parties are delegitimized, marginalized, and surrounded by a cordon sanitaire. Italy may be an exception, but Eastern Europe is on a different path.
We should remember that in Poland, the president’s power is not comparable to that of the presidents of France or the U.S. But neither is he devoid of power. The most important prerogative is that he can veto the parliament’s legislative proposals. So Nawrocki can effectively block the government’s plan to pass laws on hate speech, same-sex marriage, and education, but also on matters related to immigration, energy, and everything that weakens Poland’s sovereignty.
For that and for many other reasons, he should sustain cooperation with the parties that supported him during the elections. The mutual relations between those parties are often strained, so it is all the more important to have some kind of common platform, especially on the policies that threaten family and enforce a new dubious morality. Poland and Nawrocki need such a common front, especially since the EU will certainly launch new attacks on the president, as they always do whenever somebody defies their questionable authority to legislate morality. Both Poland and the president should be prepared for defence.
