What does Donald Trump know about politics that others don't understand? What is the impact of Trump's presidency on Europe (and especially on the Polish political scene)? And what should we anticipate from the upcoming presidential elections in Poland? Leszek Jażdżewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks to Andrzej Bobinski, Managing manager of “Insight Politics”.
LJ: What does president Donald Trump know about politics that most people do not understand?
AB: Donald Trump is simply a superb politician in many ways. We underestimated him during his first term. I read quite a few books that mocked Donald Trump and fundamentally made him look like a clown. I believe that and I'm not saying that there was any fact in those words, but I think that's why we stopped taking him seriously. Now we must take him seriously, due to the fact that his actions talk louder than his words.
During the campaign, erstwhile I watched Donald Trump's speeches, all time I heard something that was taken out of context and landed on Twitter. It just sounded incredibly stupid and didn't make any sense. I truly couldn't realize what he was saying. But then, erstwhile I sat comfortably and listened to his rally, I saw the incredible energy he generated and the way he was able to find a common language with the people who listened to him.
Even erstwhile he was talking like a hired man, talking was part of his show. It's a bit like podcasts where you don't necessarily realize what people are saying, but you just like what you hear. Trump is an amazing politician just due to the fact that he's a showman. And as a showman, he is individual who provides amusement and any kind of safety and knows what people want to hear.
Nevertheless, he is simply a terrible president and has only held office for 5 weeks. However, I anticipate that in the coming weeks, months and years we will see that he does not know all the answers and that fundamentally this method of dealing with chaos simply generates even more chaos.
I am pessimistic about the overall state of affairs in the world, but besides about where the United States is heading. I am not saying that Donald Trump is simply a dictator or that he will end democracy in the United States – on the contrary. We overestimate the impact it will have on the state and the country itself. But he uses forces that change the planet and make chaos that individual will gotta embrace at any point.
LJ: How should Europeans view the United States now? Are they inactive our ally? Or is it a power that is increasingly moving distant from Europe? What challenges does the Trump administration face not only Poland but besides Europe?
AB: It's besides early to talk about it. all day in the last 5 weeks, we have seen that Trump has rather frequently changed his head and the direction previously chosen. 1 day he says 1 thing and the next he says another. The United States is simply a completely unpredictable actor today. However, I would not go so far as to say that the United States is no longer our ally. It's besides early to usage specified powerful words.
It'll be a very hard word for Donald Trump, who's not getting any younger. There is an alternate reality in which many people around Donald Trump and his administration will be listed on others, and this will happen sooner alternatively than later. I don't anticipate Elon Musk to stay on board for more than a year. There are besides a number of safeguards, processes and institutions that can inactive reconstruct the United States to the right track.
What Donald Trump understands very well is money and markets. There is an highly strong lobby in the United States – for example, the defence lobby is likely to play a bigger function in the coming weeks. If we look at the stock prices of defence and arms companies in the United States, these are fundamentally falling. Meanwhile, if we look at what is happening to the stock exchanges in Europe, all defence companies are increasing stronger. Apparently, business understands how the planet changes. And Donald Trump understands business. That is why it is something that can inactive bring us back to the right course.
For now, however, it is clear that Donald Trump and Donald Trump's America are completely unpredictable actors. due to all the chaos that we are already seeing, we will see havoc, many problems and highly hard and dangerous situations. Nevertheless, I am somewhat optimistic due to the fact that there is inactive a strategy of control and balance, which is completely different from the strategy of control and balance that we have known for the last 80 years.
Donald Trump overestimates his strength – he is not as strong as he thinks he is. For example, legislature is 1 of the institutions that will wake up at any point and begin to watch closely its way of exercising power. Trump has initiated a number of conflicts (among another things with the judiciary), and offers only solutions. Meanwhile, the planet is becoming more and more complicated. Therefore, these simple solutions do not make any sense and will make highly complicated problems.
LJ: How does Donald Trump change the way Poland perceives its security, position in Europe, and the interior political scene?
AB: It's inactive rather early, it should be stressed. What the Polish government is doing at this point actually makes sense. This approach “we will wait and see”. Our government does not put everything on 1 scale. Especially in the face of the upcoming presidential elections in 2 and a half months, there is simply a feeling that neither the government nor the Polish society want to alienate the Americans due to the fact that we see the United States as a warrant of our security.
Nevertheless, I believe in the explanation that Donald Trump believes that he must change the planet order, that he is moving distant from the way liberal democracies are trying to form this order, and that he is heading towards a reality where we will face a limited number of superpowers that will decide the destiny of the planet and establish spheres of influence in which they will play their own games.
On the 1 hand these superpowers will fight each other, on the another hand they will sometimes cooperate to keep a fresh planet order. In what light does this place Poland and how does this change Poland's attitude towards the United States if things are going in this direction? We are heading for a completely different reality if the United States actually maintains its course in this area. The safety of Poland will should be much more closely linked to our European allies. That's what became clear.
What function will the United States play in the future? There are many different time frames here due to the fact that the situation present and next day is that we truly request the United States to warrant our safety. In about 3 to 5 years, we could start reasoning about a more autonomous defence and safety system. We would gotta go in this direction, due to the fact that the minute erstwhile all this will change will be highly hard and dangerous.
At the same time, the public's attitude towards the United States will besides change, but this change will not be binary. It will be very complex and hard due to the fact that it besides involves an ideological aspect. What JD Vance, Elon Musk and Donald Trump say – that is, in fact, we live in the time of anti-labour counter-revolution – goes to the hearts and ears of many people in Poland. We are witnessing a immense change in the way we look at the planet and it is inactive impossible to foretell how it will turn out.
What I can say and believe is that it will change our political scene, the full political spectrum, and will besides origin a generational change. In 2 or 3 years we will wake up in a completely different political reality, in which the things we will discuss and fight for will be very different from those that we consider crucial present in the current political reality.
LJ: Should we anticipate a paradigm shift in the United States – a country that has been highly politically unchangeable for the past 20 years?
AB: I think we can, especially erstwhile it comes to justice. People who were rooting for Donald Trump erstwhile he was elected president may have a immense problem with his utmost pro-American and pro-trump attitude in the coming weeks. If we witness something like a second Yalta with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump gathering and deciding the destiny of the world, even Trump's most ardent supporters in the PiS will have a problem defending this attitude and position.
However, there are a number of major questions to which we do not know the answers, but which we must find. If Europe starts gathering its defence and safety needs, this will mean strong integration. I do not imagine Europe starting to build up its defence and safety capabilities without stronger integration. If this happens, many Polish politicians will simply have an anti-European attitude.
Consequently, the first line of division will run between the pro-Europeans and the anti-Europeans, due to the fact that 1 of the paradigms in which we grew up and lived – the only thing everyone agreed on – is that we want to be part of the West. The European Union, the United States and NATO – they were the institutions that made up the West from our perspective.
Therefore, the only thing that will change sooner than later (and will form a dividing line in our political debate) is whether you are pro-European or anti-European? Are you pro- or anti-American? Pro-Europeans will most likely be anti-European, at least for the next fewer years. Meanwhile, anti-Europeans can be pro-American. And that's where we get to Russia.
I cannot imagine that in our life there will be a political organization that will say, "We are pro-Russian." However, many of these parties are already saying that they are friends of Russian friends – Viktor Orban, AfD, Marie LePen and so on. This is an highly interesting and bizarre dynamics. This dynamics is transforming into polarization between pro-European, anti-American and anti-European, pro-American forces that will effort to weaken Europe and play for Russia.
At the same time, China is the next actor to play a function in our interior policy at any point. This is another dynamic that is highly hard to imagine, but I say we will witness many movements in the South China Sea.
In this context, the real problem for Donald Trump is not Ukraine, nor Russia – namely China. We see this present – thanks to military exercises involving Chinese warships sailing to Australia in fresh weeks. Xi Jinping sees what is happening and understands that this is an chance for him to make his next move. erstwhile this begins, the question will arise of how the Chinese issue will affect our policy. I think it will be another component of this line of division between pro-European, anti-American forces, which will most likely besides be anti-Chinese.
Polish strategical autonomy will so be anti-European, pro-American and will look towards China, looking for various actors who can finance our development. This group will consist of realists who will effort to observe these superpowers and effort to usage the slogan: “Poland first of all!”.
Indeed, we must take from all these actors what they can give us. That's why if the Americans want to sale us an F-35, we'll buy it. If the Russians want to buy our apples, we'll sale them apples. And if the Chinese want to invest in our infrastructure, then let them.
These realists will be a strange, complex force to be reckoned with in Poland. However, this will not happen in the next 3 months, as the forthcoming presidential run may slow these changes down. Nevertheless, this is where we are heading.
This coming change is huge. We seem to have had a very broad consensus in this country for the last 35 years – and not only on abroad policy. We fought mainly for symbolic issues (although it is not essential to add that they were highly important). Nevertheless, we agreed on what to do.
We did not always agree on how to accomplish these objectives. Sometimes we agreed that we have no thought how to decision forward with wellness care or housing. But in general we had the same knowing of the risks, needs and challenges we face in society. That is why we fought among ourselves for issues concerning the Church or abortion, but abroad policy was completely outside the scope of these discussions due to the fact that we wanted to be part of the West. Interestingly, our polarization will be organized by the planet outside Poland.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, we will proceed to agree on what needs to be done – in terms of competitiveness, the request for transformation of our energy system, climate or another specified issues. In short, we will agree on the challenges, but then we will fight for the symbolic meaning of all of this. It is something fresh and crucial to realize how our political strategy will change with respect to abroad policy and everything that will happen outside.
LJ: Let's decision on to the upcoming presidential elections in Poland, which will take place on 18 May (first round) and 1 June (second round, if necessary). At the moment, it seems that the president of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski will win easily. What would gotta happen to Trzaskowski not becoming president? Is specified a script possible? What should we know about the upcoming presidential election?
AB: For now, looking at the ongoing race for the presidency, Rafał Trzaskowski is very lucky. It seems that the first circular will benefit him for 3 reasons.
Firstly, Trzaskowski practically has no another serious candidates on his side of the political spectrum, so he can do almost anything due to the fact that no 1 will "eat" his support. Left-wing candidates (such as Magdalena Biejat, Adrian Zandberg and respective others) absorb about 7% of voter support who are willing to vote for the left. Individually, however, they have a problem with achieving 3-4%, which would make them serious rivals. Meanwhile, Simon Holovnia is dealing with a downward trend due to the fact that his run makes no sense.
In this context, Trzaskowski truly has a mountain due to the fact that he is the only candidate who directs his run to half the voters in Poland. There are a million candidates on the right side of the political spectrum and they are all fighting for the same issues. From Trzaskowski's perspective, this is beneficial, due to the fact that first, it makes them look weaker due to the fact that they gotta divide voters' votes among themselves.
Another issue is that, due to the fact that they are fighting for these issues, they are as a consequence entrenched in item and have a problem utilizing broad narratives and moving towards the centre of political debate – which is most likely crucial for winning in the second round. Therefore, they are fighting for insignificant issues, which in turn makes them appear to be utmost and right-wing candidates, not those who would be centred and could gain widespread support. In the meantime, however, they will gotta present themselves at any point as rather subdued centrist candidates in order to accomplish this golden means.
The 3rd origin is that the Law and Justice has a mediocre position due to the fact that it has a very weak candidate. This organization missed how the planet changes. I thought they'd keep watching what Donald Trump was doing and effort to usage his playbook, but they don't. Instead, their presidential candidate is Karol Nawrocki, who is simply a boxer. However, they do not realize that young people are not presently watching boxing. They like to watch all these weird fights like UFCs or MMAs. Interestingly, this is what Donald Trump referred to in his campaign, due to the fact that in the state it was something that spoke to people.
Meanwhile, Karol Nawrocki does not effort to usage that sentiment. seemingly his problem is that young people don't believe in him. Nothing about him is attractive to young people. If we compare Sławomir Mentzen to Nawrocki, we will see a immense generation change. However, it is not truly about Nawrocki, nor about Paweł Kiernaker, the head of his campaign. Basically, it's about Jarosław Kaczyński. PiS candidates must run to make sense for Jarosław Kaczyński, due to the fact that he rules. I'm not saying that he makes choices, but PiS players play under the owner of the club – and the owner is Jarosław Kaczyński.
But the electorate is looking for something else. If it is Andrzej Nowak, prof. of past who gave the first speech and gave the speech of the full organization convention, quoting Pope John Paul II, then, from the point of view of Jarosław Kaczyński, it makes sense to go in this direction. Looking at what happens in polls and how the planet changes, however, it is not necessarily what voters under 50 are looking for.
For these 3 reasons, it truly seems that Rafał Trzaskowski will get off the mountain in the first round. The question, however, concerns the second circular and what happens then. How much can he get in the first round? And how many of these voters will go and vote for Trzaskowski in the second round?
What is more, if any of the right-wing candidates do not get 30% of the vote in the first round, it will indicate that we will have a very fragmented electorate that will fight among ourselves. And you can't just tell people, "Now go and vote for the candidate we've been fighting for the last 3 months." Everyone competes, and that doesn't necessarily mean they love each other. This will so be highly difficult.
The popularity of the government is simply a major hazard origin – apart from issues we cannot predict. Nevertheless, the fresh CBOS study states that the emergence in government popularity is at a level of plus 5 points in sympathy and minus 4 in antipathy. This means that January was the worst period and now the popularity of the government is beginning to grow – although it is likely not to increase more, alternatively to stabilise.
It is not essential to add that in a highly polarized society 40-60% of society will have any sympathy for the government. Even erstwhile the government's ratings were falling, Trzaskowski's position was rather stable. Therefore, his support for the government does not seem to harm his popularity. Trzaskowski runs a very sensible and disciplined campaign. You may like him or not, but he does things that a presidential candidate should do to yet win the presidential race.
The only thing that can happen is that the government can mobilize the another side. That's the point. I don't think Trzaskowski's support is going down. Rather, it will be a question of attendance and whether anti-government, anti-Tracovian supporters will be very mobilized and will go to the polls. Does Elon Musk and his algorithms help? I don't think so, due to the fact that it doesn't seem likely, but you gotta keep that script in mind.
I don't like prognostic markets, but sometimes I look at them to better realize a trend. But if individual likes them, it is estimated that Trzaskowski will win 68-72% of the votes in the presidential election, which is rather a large advantage. And that's a beautiful good probability indicator for his second circular win.
This podcast was produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movieno Liberal Social and the Liberté Foundation!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are liable for the content of the podcast nor for any way of utilizing it.
Podcast is besides available on platforms Sound, Apple Podcast, Stitcher and Spotify
Dr. Olga Łabendowicz translated from English
Read English at 4liberty.eu
