{"id":9527,"date":"2017-07-07T20:28:18","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T20:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9527"},"modified":"2017-07-07T20:28:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T20:28:18","slug":"is-trump-actually-popular-in-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/is-trump-actually-popular-in-poland\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump actually popular in Poland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Porter-Sz\u00fccs<\/a>, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As Donald Trump began speaking in Warsaw at noon on July 6, I was sitting in my apartment a few blocks away. <\/p>\n

Police helicopters kept buzzing past my building, and nearly all the main streets were blocked off. A government-sponsored \u201cpicnic\u201d was being staged in a field near the National Stadium to celebrate Trump\u2019s visit, and supporters of the ruling party had been bused in<\/a>. That sort of artificial display of enthusiasm is necessary because Trump is definitely not popular here.<\/p>\n

This visit has sparked familiar stories about Poland being the most pro-American country<\/a> in Europe. CNN ran a story depicting Poland and its neighbors as inherently friendly<\/a> to Trump\u2019s brand of far-right nationalism. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about Polish history<\/a> for nearly 30 years, so I wasn\u2019t at all surprised by this. It fits with the often repeated argument that the former Soviet bloc countries were never truly ready<\/a> to accept the liberal democratic norms of the more \u201ccivilized\u201d West. <\/p>\n

The familiar stereotypes<\/h2>\n

Poland\u2019s de facto authoritarian ruler, Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski<\/a>, said last week that other European countries \u201cenvy Poland<\/a>\u201d because Trump decided to visit here. Polish president Andrzej Duda \u2013 who is, in reality, less powerful than Kaczy\u0144ski \u2013 said that the American president\u2019s support will strengthen Poland\u2019s position internationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is hard for me to imagine how this could be true. Given the deep distrust of Trump among European leaders, and the overall<\/a> contempt<\/a> with which he is viewed across the continent, the only possible outcome of Trump\u2019s visit is to further Poland\u2019s isolation within the European Union.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem as I see it: The Polish government is giving ammunition to entrenched stereotypes about Poles as backward, undemocratic, bigoted and uncultured. And the Western press, while extremely critical<\/a> of Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s assault on European norms, creates a feedback loop for his claim that he represents the true Poland<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He does not. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n A Warsaw bus stop ad reads: \u2018This is not a cap; it is an invitation to Canada\u2019 on March 3, 2017.<\/span>
\n Brian Porter-Sz\u00fccs<\/span>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the 2015 elections, Kaczy\u0144ski won 38 percent of the vote<\/a>. He was able to transform that support into a parliamentary majority only because the left and center-left were fragmented among several small parties. In Poland, parties getting fewer than 5 percent receive no delegates. Their votes are distributed among the larger parties. <\/p>\n

The popularity of the ruling party hasn\u2019t risen since the election. For most of the past year it has slid even lower<\/a>. If we add in a second right-wing party called \u201cKukiz 15<\/a>\u201d that generally supports the government\u2019s policies, the right is still supported by less than half of the Polish population.<\/p>\n

Even to assert that Donald Trump is more popular in Poland than elsewhere in Europe is misleading. During the U.S. elections, a survey asked Poles whom they would prefer to see in the White House. Only 20 percent<\/a> chose Trump. After the election, a \u201cwhopping\u201d 13 percent<\/a> felt that Trump\u2019s victory would be good for Poland. Yes, these figures are indeed higher than the 9 percent<\/a> popularity rating that he enjoys in Europe overall, but they hardly paint a picture of Poland as a friendly place for the U.S. president. <\/p>\n

Placed in an American context, Trump\u2019s approval rating is higher in California<\/a> than it is in Poland. <\/p>\n

In general, Poles are more conservative than most West Europeans, but that\u2019s relative. The American right should not hold any delusions: Their worldview might be echoed in the government offices of Warsaw under the current leadership, but their support is only marginally greater along the Vistula than it is along the Thames, the Seine or the Rhine.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe current Polish government is trying to pull the country away from Europe. Reinforcing anti-Polish attitudes in the western part of the continent might help them succeed. But let\u2019s not forget that those attitudes are based on stereotypes that do not reflect the totality, or even the majority, of today\u2019s Poland.<\/p>\n

Brian Porter-Sz\u00fccs<\/a>, Professor of History, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Porter-Sz\u00fccs, University of Michigan As Donald Trump began speaking in Warsaw at noon on July 6, I was sitting in my apartment a few blocks away. Police helicopters kept buzzing past my building, and nearly all the main streets were blocked off. A government-sponsored \u201cpicnic\u201d was being staged in a field near the National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[479,621,349,1853,1850,2197],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9529,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9527\/revisions\/9529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}