In Poland and America, Religion Propels the Radical Right (Newsweek
Polska, Poland)
"For those who dreamed Poland would be like America, their
dream is now coming true. The similarity mostly centers in the scale of
degeneration. Partisanship, demagogy, populism, zero willingness to compromise in
any way, the most severe recriminations and hatred hurled at one another. ... At
roughly the same time, the U.S. Republican Party and the biggest right-wing
party in Poland became hostages to ideological extremists and radicals. Why are right-wing radicalization and ideology present to
such an extent both America and Poland? It so happens that in both countries,
religion plays an enormous role in public life."
Meet Father Tadeusz Rydzyk: a combination of U.S. right-wing icons Reverend Pat Robertson and Senator Ted Cruz - heavy on the Cruz - he is a leading figure of Poland's similarly-inflexible extreme right.
The Republican
Party in the United States and the biggest right-wing party in Poland [PiS, or Law and Justice Party],
have become hostages to ideological extremists at roughly the same time.
For
those who dreamed Poland would be like America, their dream is now coming true.
Perhaps not all of Poland is like the U.S., but politics in Poland is almost
exactly like it is in America. One has to start somewhere.
The
similarity mostly centers on the scale of degeneration. Partisanship, demagogy,
populism, zero willingness to compromise in any way, the most severe recriminations
and hatred hurled at one another … Yes, our government, in contrast to
America's, hasn't shut down. It may be, however, that this is due to the fact
that, as PiS has been trying to convince us for
years, the state no longer exists, or at least it doesn't work. In any case, how
can something that isn't working in the first place be paralyzed?
The
similarities between American and Polish politics concern mostly the main
parties on the right. In America, the party of Lincoln and Reagan became the party
of provincial bigots, hating the liberal enemy, the Black president,
feminism, gays, and abortion. In Poland, the party that was to be our version
of the [German] CDU [Christian Democratic Union],
became a haven for the Smolensk cult [hard-core conspiracy theorists who
maintain that the 2010 catastrophic
air crash near Smolensk, Russia, which took the lives of then-President
Kaczynski and a number of other senior officials, was a coup], going hand-in-hand, instead
of with Christian Democratic tradition, with the most primitive, bigoted
version of the National
Party [a nationalistic pre-WWII party].
At
roughly the same time, the Republican Party in the United States and the
biggest right-wing party in Poland became hostages to ideological extremists
and radicals. In America, they are the creepy Tea Party members; in our country,
the trusted minions of the Father-director [Father TadeuszRydzyk, director of Poland's extreme right Catholic
Radio Maryja].
Republican leaders haven't even tried to control this radical force of nature;
while in Poland, PIS leader Jarosław
Kaczyński has undertaken tremendous effort in this direction. The
result? The Republican leadership has been almost annihilated; while PiS elities have themselves become extreme.
After
Smolensk, the most brutal, vulgar accusations hurled at our president and prime
minister became the grist of the mainstream right, with the seal of approval of
Poland’s "Redeemer" himself, [PiS leader] Kaczyński.
America has had no Smolensk catastrophe, and moreover, a sense of propriety has not
entirely disappeared there, so that most important Republicans don't allow
themselves such vulgar attacks on President Obama. However, the right flank of
the Republican Party has no such inhibitions. Just as in Poland, where President
Komorowski and Prime Minister Tusk are being called "traitors,"
in the United States it is said that Barack Hussein Obama (emphasis on Hussein)
is anti-American and an emissary of Satan.
The
fact that the Republican Party and the PiS have
become the willing prisoners of radicals is reflected in their very similar
political-medial alliances. In the United States. it is the alliance of the Tea
Party and populist right-wing media, with Fox
News leading the charge. In Poland, Father Rydzyk
and politicians from his circle are allied with right-wing media associated
with the PiS. So just as the Republican Party is hostage
to right-wing media extremism, PiS is hostage to “unapologetic”
extremism. Right-wing media are not only singing a chorus for Kaczyński;
they often impose on him both the themes and tones of his appearances.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Right-wing
radicalism in both countries has a similar goal: the delegitimization of those
in power. In Poland this means the president, prime minister, the ruling party
and its cabinet. In the United States it means the president, the Senate, where
Democrats are in the majority, and the “overly liberal” justices of the Supreme
Court. In both countries, the extreme right is of the opinion that any power not
in its hands has no legitimacy, and therefore must be trampled on and destroyed.
The goal is, as Thomas
Friedman wrote in The New York Times,
to repeal majority rule in America.
It's
uncanny that the radical right, even separated by an ocean, speaks the same
language. Both here and there, they assert simply that they are right, and that
the state not only lacks a democratic mandate, but is dictatorial. Both here
and there, this requires a certain political-emotional sleight of hand - a
fundamental negation of all election results at variance with the wishes of the
radicals. So Tea Partiers don't admit to themselves that Obama won election twice,
that Democrats won the Senate, and that Obamacare has
been confirmed by Congress and the Supreme Court. We don't like these results,
so we will paralyze the country to prevent them from entering into force.
Likewise, PiS refuses to acknowledge that it has lost
the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, as well as those for the
European Parliament. Since we have no power, it must mean that those who do
have no democratic mandate. Simple, isn’t it?
Where
does right-wing radicalization and ideology come from? Why it is present to
such an extent both in the United States and Poland? It so happens that in both
countries, religion plays an enormous role in public life. It doesn't matter
that, in contrast to Poles, most Americans are Protestant. A Bible-citing Tea
Party patriot is very similar to Father Rydzyk’s Catholic
Pole.
There
is, for us, a thread of a silver lining here: American Protestantism isn't
changing, while Catholicism - very much so. We can now start to consider the
possible impact of Pope Francis, not only on the Polish Church, but on Polish
politics. But that's another story ...
