@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver While I agree with the author’s basic sentiments, some of the things he says about Poland and Hungary are close to absurd (and I am no sense a PiS or Orban supporter). It’s one thing to talk about “illiberalism” and “populism” but to claim that a PiS, which not only won a free
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver election but is likely to win the next one by a larger margin, is distorting the meaning of the term so much that it becomes almost meaningless. Moreover, PiS is tight now trying to change the system of elections to the European Parliament which would give a huge advantage not
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver only to itself but also to the largest opposition party, P.O., which has, not surprisingly, not backed the protests by the smaller parties (both to the left and to the right of the two big ones). In fact, PiS is trying to realise its long established aim of turning the Polish
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver political system into a two party one resembling the US, seeing itself in the role of the GOP (more accurately, the Trumpian version of GOP, since on economic matters PIS is actually considerably to the left of the US Democrats). PiS, of course, assumes that in a two party
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver system it would enjoy a big advantage due to the social conservatism and economic egalitarianism of the majority of the Polish society. There is no way, however, to establish here any form of one party rule and most serious PiS leaders & especially Kaczyński, do not even dream
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver about it. What Kaczyński believes himself to be doing (and, by the way, I don’t think that is what is actually happening although it woukd take a lot of space to explain) is making the institutions created after the fall of communism more representative of what he believes
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver the Polish society to be. Kaczyński was once a legal scholar, he wrote his doctoral thesis under professor of Warsaw University Stanisław Ehrlich, an assimilated Jew, and once a Marxist. Even abandoning Marxism Ehrlich retained his basic outlook on law and this outlook was
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver entirely adopted by Kaczyński, who has frequently talked about it. Ehrlich rejected the liberal view that “rule of law” an be created by building “independent institutions”, because in his view (as in Marx’s) individuals are generally not independent of their “economic and
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver social milieu, and serve its interests. So to create real “rule of law” you have to have not only institutions but the people operating them should be representative of all the important social and economic groups in society. In this view, everything is really political, and his
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver supporters often use the US system as an example: where the judges political and ideological views are well known and this is not considered as something improper. In Kaczyński’s views the liberals in collaboration with former communists formed the new Polish elite,
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver including the judiciary after the fall of communism and this elite is, in his view, not representative of the Polish society as a whole. So his extremely ambitious and indeed revolutionary aim is a change of the elite, not creation of an autocracy. Now, I don’t personalny think
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver this can be accomplished (its far too late for that for once) and the only effect is increasing chaos and lasting economic damage. The economy, however, is still very dynamic, not because of anything PiS has done, but in spite of that. PiS is therefore likely to stay in power
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver until the economy runs out of steam (unless it is foolish enough to get into the kind of conflict with the EU that would necessitate Poland leaving the EU, in which case it will be immediately ejected from a power).
Once the economy turns sour, there will be no way for PiS to
Once the economy turns sour, there will be no way for PiS to
@AviWoolf @Rogue_Beaver stay in power so it’s principal problem is now how to legitimise the changes it has made and is still hoping to make so that the opposition is unable to reverse them entirely.
