The majority isn't really happy but the country is divided. The problem is the opposition is very weak and all parties prefer their own interest rather than uniting against this bunch of lunatics that currently rule in our country. The reason PiS won is because people were tired with 8 years of previous government which wasn't bad but wasn't good either - very mediocore really (they did good stuff for the economy but really left social issues and PiS used that promising things our country cannot really support financially). The main voting point for the previous government was that they weren't PiS. But they've gotten really weak when Donald Tusk went to EU and some personal wars started within the previous ruling party.
And the other reason was that half of Poles didn't go to vote at all and PiS always had very stable voter pool (they are acting like a sect at this point).
I really hope people will actually go to vote next election because many are dissatisfied (mostly with how polish diplomacy is an absolute failure and most Poles are pro EU). Last election many people didn't go because "they didn't have anyone to vote for". The problem is that radicals vote religiously and the more moderates don't vote the more radical voices get into power.
At the same time people are a bit distrustful towards middle eastern migrants so EU's stance on forcing migrants is a bit of a political problem. I mean we've never really had many non white people around so it's natural that people would need some time to get used to the idea of letting in many different looking people. The terrorist attacks in the West really don't help.
But there is also the issue that PiS might try to meddle with the election laws. They are already trying to find the way to take over the local government of Warsaw (they never had much support in the capital) by changing voting areas. They also try to prevent current local governments that are mostly not connected to any party or from opposing parties from getting reelected by limiting their term of office. This is bad because local governments are the future of polish politics as it's there were Poles learn they actually can influence politics by voting on people who do something visible to them and are something more than a face on a TV. But PiS doesn't like that - they are authoritarian from bottom up; no personal thought against the leader aloud.
TL;DR: If PiS doesn't screw too much with election laws and if majority of Poles actually vote they should lose.
Undoubtedly envious of their seductive skills, finer weather and superior food.
I do imagine the reaction being mostly a move to get votes in Poland from Poles that haven't seen a non-Polish person in their lives. You know, kind of like Le Pen getting votes from rural places in France, and the Brexit vote in Eastern England. The same places that get scared by William Wallace's 10ft tall, ass-lightning magnificent visage.
Good on Poland. Glad to see at least one western nation stands against the EU's obsession with refugees.
Ehh, they are still bound by EU law, which on its fundamental level requires the member states to abide by democratic rule of law and things like that. Well, it's not like they can interfere all that much in the internal redrafting shitting on the constitutional law, but should Kaczyński fulfill his wet dream of having an entire country structured around people licking his ass, EU wouldn't leave it be. Sure, they ongoing procedure of safeguarding rule of law for Poland is currently going at snails' pace, but if they pull shit like that Poland will be sanctioned to hell and beyond before Kaczyński can say Smoleńsk. And no Orban will save him.
How did political correctness cause an issue with a gigantic border (largely a nautical one, as well as one controlled mostly by the poorest EU countries) not being capable of stopping hundreds of thousands of people trying to force it with 100% effectiveness? And the difference isn't as large as you make it out to be. Pointing out that Poles had a reason to go west is meaningless since there's no difference here. Refugees have a reason to go to Poland, it being a safe country. And their wants are largely irrelevant. Refugees don't have some immense say in the rules of their refuge once they are accepted somewhere. If they are relocated to Poland and they leave, they breach the rules of their refuge. So, unless they are suicidal or something, chances are those relocated to Poland won't leave, even if only due to fear.
No, just no. Poland took 59 refugees from Ukraine since 2013. Rest Ukrainians are economic migrants. If EU told those to fuck off is inconsequential to this topic. And sure, there are economic migrants among the refugees, quite a bit of them. But... 1. The quotas are for already processed refugees, which I imagine includes them being indeed refugees. 2. Ukrainian economic migrants are actually wanted in Poland. They are subject to easier access to work compared to other non-EU foreigners and are Poland's cheap labor force, just like Polish people are in the west (and, to some degree, a labor replacement for the millions of Polish people that emigrated).
On the other hand, the migrant crisis, refugees and economic migrants alike, aren't really wanted in Europe. The fact they didn't get visas and the like shows that. It's not like Europe suddenly got a swell idea to have displaced people appear out of nowhere and then had cause economic migrants join in on the ride, in a migration wave so big it was too large to effectively stop. And once they got here, something had to be done about them. Which is why we're in the current situation. These two are not comparable situations. Ukrainians in Poland are comparable to Poles in UK/Germany/Netherlands/Romania/etc.
One million Ukrainians for Poland alone, with population below 40 millions. One million migrants from Middle East and Africa spread across 27 countries with the total population above half a billion. How exactly is the first amount the one that's more reasonable? And again, we have what we have because those people already got in and something had to be done with them. EU being rather pro human rights, shooting them dead on the stop, deporting them to Syria or doing nothing weren't really the options. The things you paint as the culprit happened only afterwards.
"Happened" loosely speaking, that is, because it's not like you can't say bad things about Islam. And trivia time again: Polish people can cause trouble in Germany and other countries. Not even potentially. Guess EU's expansion eastward was a mistake. And as long as foreigners are obeying the law and are using legal venues to express themselves there's no real problem with them not following customs or enforcing their ways. Customs are meaningless nonsense and if they're trying to enforce their ways in legal ways, the problem ends at ignoring them.
Nationalists (and the people brilliant enough to be swayed by their even brillianter rhetoric) aren't some kind of mysterious badass enigmas that need to be deciphered. Their problems have remained the same for centuries. Muh jerbs, mug foreigners, muh Jeebus, muh sovereignty, muh traditions good, muh progress bad, muh technology badder and muh globalization. With the overarching theme of "we hate everything that isn't us". Appeasing nationalists and wasting time on them in other ways isn't beneficial to anyone. The only thing it achieves is dumbing down of society
It doesn't even benefit the nationalists. Because even if you do waste time on them, try to address their problems in logical ways and so on, they won't listen to you for shit anyway. They'll listen to the newest populist crackpot, the far right party their family voted since forever or the person their priest tells them to vote for (the last two still being populist crackpots more often than not). Which once in power don't exactly work in their best interest. See GOP healthcare plans (or any other plans affecting the common person) fucking over the poor rural voters the most. I.e. the people that voted for them.
Abortion ban didn't happen. Poland is more Catholic than the Pope (now more than ever with Francis, who is being called a traitor in some of the more brilliant nationalist circles in Poland) though, so by the time of the next elections it wouldn't change much anyway, since it wouldn't be a fresh topic anymore and most of the voters have memory of a goldfish and attention span of a dead goldfish. Many PiS voters are OK with the legal system's changes since they view the judiciary as corrupt and they are OK with politically steered prosecution because they are authoritarian. They also tend to believe whatever horseshit narrative PiS will peddle in general.
The topic of the judiciary sort of died down when the term of the previous president of the Constitutional Tribunal that was against PiS expired anyway. Then PiS got to select their puppet as the new president through some inane procedure they pulled out of their ass and their final legislation change to how the Tribunal operates went unopposed, effectively neutering it. After there isn't much to be covered by the media anymore. Attention span of a dead goldfish enters the picture again. Maybe sometimes a hilarious tidbit about how incompetent the new president of the Tribunal is pops up every now and then, but that's about it. Which PiS and their voters tend to dismiss with their boogeyman of "Germany-controlled media".
If any big issue pops up near the next elections, they'll again buy votes with even more welfare, even for people that don't need it.
To showcase how sad Poland's situation is I'll cover the casus of Poland's Minister of Defense. First of all, the guy is batshit crazy. He also hired an incompetent (speaking both legally and colloquially) ass-licker in lucrative positions, hired his (even more incompetent) boy-toy as well, created some international scandals with military equipment producers and even NATO, doesn't consult anything with the president (the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces), ignores the president when he tries to reach him through public letters (which is all sorts of fucked up) and (this is the only thing that actually got PiS bothered), started feeling a bit too confident in his position and began to disobey the party's leader on certain things.
Now, as for why his casus showcases the sad. The talks about restructuring the government are getting louder and louder even within the government itself. So, you'd think the Minister of Defense's days are numbered because he'll be replaced, right? And yet, the (incognito, because they're too chickenshit in regards to Kaczyński) top level party officials repeatedly informed the press that this guy's position is simply too strong to touch him, even if he disobeys the party leader, Napoleon.
And why is his position so strong? PiS politicians themselves admit it's because he's the most popular politician among the voters who believe Smolensk presidential plane crash was actually an assassination (he leads the commission "investigating" it for the billionth time), which are numerous enough that if they went away with the minister, PiS would lose the elections. Even though the people blamed for this "assassination" are Tusk, Putin and Tusk again. And his "findings" oscillate around thermobaric weapons he discovered through divination, fake fog machines and magical (and/or metal) trees. So, summing this up, people believing in a blatantly retarded conspiracy theory are numerous enough to be a deciding factor in the elections.
Speaking of which, the circus the party leader created about monthly anniversaries of the plane crash will be a topic for psychiatrists for centuries to come.
Then you have the typical nationalist victim complexes. Russia is out to get them. Germany is out to get them. Liberal media is out to get them. Atheists are out to get them. Socialists are out to get them. The ghosts of communists are out to get them. EU is out to get them. Everyone is out to get them, because Poland is the Messiah of nations (I'm not even joking) and other countries can't contain their envy.
Poland isn't even in a situation where one may hope for the problem to solve itself as the old people voting for the right wing nutjobs die out like is the case in US. Because among the brilliant Polish youth, this (to quote himself when he talked about refugees, seems more than appropriate given the topic) "human garbage" is rather popular. This country is doomed and it was a mistake it was recreated after the partitions. It's the only country in the world that's continuously regressing. Sure, some countries may have a bout of regressiveness every now and then and then they self-correct. Poland is going at it without rest since 15th century.
The only hope is the government once again collapses because it can't contain Kaczynski's bloated ego, like it happened in 2007. With the politicians leaving PiS forming parties too small to enter the parliament. It is even more likely than in 2007, since the current government is a coalition one (largely with the parties that broke out in 2007 and managed to gain supporters since then), making the potential political tensions creating more damaging rifts.
Except for the hundred thousands Tatars in the first RP. Alas, with Poland being the regressive abomination, things like that or the concept of religious tolerance are brushed under the carpet most of the times. Also, almost all terrorist attacks in the West are committed by the West's nationals, that became nationals due to post-colonial reasons and in many cases are people that are from 3rd or later generation that then became radicalized due to feeling of marginalization. Then again, you're right, they don't help anyway, because Polish (or any, for that matter) nationalists lack the brain power to comprehend this nuance.
One what now? If you swapped the most common religion to Islam (and just that, with no actual influence of the religion on the current state of things) Poland would be another Turkey, on the way to Iran.
The West, geographically speaking, encompasses all of Europe. It was used as a term from the standpoint of the Middle East, for which Europe lies in the West.
Politically, the West is different to the cultural West. For example, Poland wasn't the West until they came in the EU, but now they can be considered so. Culturally, they have always been the West.
Sort of like how North-European countries are the West in spite of being North.
Good attempt at saying something rational, but not good enough! Do keep trying though!
Not wishing to be pedantic, but here in the UK = Western Europe, pretty much the overwhelming majority of Europe is East of me = Eastern Europe.
Waves across the channel at Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Austria......hello Eastern Europe.
Carry on.......
13/11/2022 Sir Keir Starmer. "Brexit is safe in my hands, Let me be really clear about Brexit. There is no case for going back into the EU and no case for going into the single market or customs union. Freedom of movement is over"