Polish women turn on Donald Tusk over abortion rights

Because the neoliberal political elite expends **much** more effort de-fanging leftist movements and co-opting them than quelling the far right.

Notice how the major “leftist party” in much of the west is basically neoliberalism while maybe adding a little to welfare.

So yeah I think when inevitable discontent comes from inequality, the left has been defanged, it’s kind of inevitable the facists win.


This is what’s happening. Current president vetoes all changes and directs them to Constitutional Court held by judges assigned (unlawfully) by the current opposition party that then rules it is unconstitutional. Game over. In addition to all the pardons recently issued, nothing will change unless we elect a new president not connected to former ruling party (PiS) in any way.

So, other commenters who are very furious and obviously not from Poland should now reevaluate their reasons to be mad.

And the article might be an attempt to spin the narration away from currently evolving scandal concerning independent presidential candidate backed by the former ruling party (PiS, party of current president). Please be aware that we have elections very soon…

I'm not Polish or from Poland, but I guess women and political allies face the double endurance test of hoping for a gendered violence regime change and staying a diverse, but ultimately united and politically active front.

If they have a Donald Tusk, it stands to reason they also have an Elon Mrump.

I see. So initially there was leniency given to Ukrainian refugees then? Which he's hoping to roll back because it's getting exploited? You're right, that doesn't seem too insensible.

hardened his stance on immigration, **calling for Ukrainian refugees’ benefits to be cut**.

Your perception of this statement is out of context. The context is, on two examples

1. Guaranteed minimal pension for foreigners require them to work legally in Poland for only one month. This is exploited by Ukrainians and at the same time Polish nationals have much stricter requirements, we feel discriminated in our own country.

2. Up to June 2025 the social program 500+ (now 800+) which is paid as support in raising a child, for each child, put no limits on eligibility for foreigners. Again exploited by Ukrainian families that quickly returned to their homeland.

Before the invasion there was also governmental support in form of partial mortgage repayment for people buying their first flat which again was exploited by Ukrainians buying their first flat… in Poland.

Our government has a track record of intentional fuckups in this regard, this is reflected in public mood towards social support for Ukrainians. This is not to stop helping Ukrainian refugees, this is manipulation. It is to stop treating Poles in their own country worse than foreigners.

Billionaires were quite shy about being right wing political activists in an environment where fascist activism was bad for business.

But when Thiel, Murdoch and their cronies went ahead and not only didn't get dinged for their crap but became more powerful *because* of it that became not just easier, but their default stance.

The neofascist movement didn't start with billionaires. It didn't even start with Steve Bannon rotting away at Breitbart. It started in 4chan and crappy websites and extremist online groups deploying relatively subtle examples of what we now recognize as culture wars and then the far-right media learning that lesson and leveraging it to take control of right wing politics.

Nobody in the left deployed those tools anywhere near that successfully at the time, and they still don't. And now there are fewer billionaires willing to bankroll them as a PR move, so it's harder.

Billionaires are not suppressed by society, especially not by liberals.

Nope. Pure denialism there. The liberals with resources were as willing to suppress the extreme right as the extreme left. They're both outsiders. Why is the far right capable of mounting a populist response to that suppression but the left wing cannot?

*This* got weaponized by the far right, from 4chan to Reddit to Twitter, into a extremely effective PR machine to discourage political opponents and ingest potential supporters into a cult-like zeal. Even assuming that isn't the goal for the left (and isn't it?) why is it not capable of mounting a similar system with the same tools?

Leftist voices are suppressed in society because they challenge the ruling class.

Rightist voices are amplified because they only threaten minorities.

We are competing with a handicap, the solution is _this_. Systems where people can gather and share ideas without said ruling class involved.

The right have devised and extremely effective strategy: spam the Internet with an absurd amount of hit pieces against the left (and liberal!) politicians. They monitor the reaction, and as soon as one takes hold, they push it - hard.

The left have a special talent for not showing up or wasting their vote on a no hope candidate. This strategy plays straight into that weakness.

Some examples: incubators for babies during the Brexit vote, being pro-Palestine during the 2019 UK election. Being *anti*-Palestine during the US election. Any reason to sit it out... and let facists win.

We need to wake up and realise that sitting it out is exactly what the nazis want. They don't expect you to vote for them. Just sitting it out is enough.

Yes, better left-wing candidates would be great - but that's on us. Getting rid of FPTP in the UK might help. Either way, we need to wake up to this strategy and start being smarter. Grass root campaigns to get better candidates, sure, but for fucks sake, turn out and vote!

Well, that's a problem for me, because any political system that relies on individual ethics (or in the ability to take specific actions politically that are seen as ethical by a wide range of ideological views) is doomed to failure.

The system can't depend on some centrist amalgamation of forces that somehow magically does all things for all members of the spectrum. There needs to be a solution. There needs to be a dragnet of leftist forces converting disaffection with centrists into political power.

If the path to fascism is depending on centrist grey men somehow fulfilling the expectations of leftists with no fallback option then we've failed already. How do you stop fascism when that hope does not materialize? Why is there no left wing answer to that question but there is a very successful right wing answer?

Oh look, the "give us a unicorn candidate or we'll enable Fascism and it's all your fault" people are here

Nah.

Not even as a joke, and this is extremely not a joke, unfortunately.

And whatever, then the question becomes why that. Why is the left wing trapped in endless variations of a prisoner's dilemma but the right is able to weaponize modern social dynamics effortlessly. Either way it's a failure of the space.

People in Poland don't want communism and never will.

I am furious,

When will centrists learn that “blindly supporting” parties and rejecting legitimate criticism only loses them votes. “Having ethics” is the only workable solution that doesn’t end right back in fascism.

It’s like they want fash to win, they do everything but hold themselves accountable.

The question is why does that translate into disengagement instead of left-wing alternatives gaining support

because people aren't ready for the fully automated luxury gay space communism, and they want better things for themselves, and not for everyone else around them.

I thought for sure Donald Tusk, and in particular Tusk being a portmanteau between Musk and Trump, was a fake name.

And what a sad state Polish politics looks to be in.

Trzaskowski, 53, has sought to position himself as more progressive than Tusk, who is 68. But faced with rising support for ultraconservative views espoused by Mentzen and Nawrocki, he recently hardened his stance on immigration, **calling for Ukrainian refugees’ benefits to be cut**.

>

He also distanced himself from the inclusive language previously introduced at Warsaw city hall. “**We have two biological sexes, we all know that**,” Trzaskowski said in a recent Polsat television interview that drew criticism from LGBTQ activists.

If that's the best guy to vote for, sad state indeed.

Isn't it a huge problem that the president is blocking almost everything that's even slightly progressive? Turning away now, right before they have a chance to actually change things if the presidential election goes well seems like a bad idea

This almost reads like a propaganda piece right out of Russia's playbook in order to keep PiS in power...

Tusk is the classic,

centrist who puts off the far right for a little bit but doesn’t actually fix most of the glaring problems so the far right will win within the next couple election cycles anyways.

See: Macron, Biden, Starmer, Carney, Albanese.

Neoliberal centrists who dont dare tackle the big issues.

I am so mad.

When are we intending to learn that "turning away" no longer works and "turning towards" is the only workable system that doesn't end right back in fascism?

Look, I get it, it sucks when you support a politician with a mandate and then they don't deliver. Or when you support someone as an alternative despite misalignment on the mandate and then it turns out they're not doing your agenda but the one you supported while holding your nose. It sucks.

But it's now a legit functional electoral strategy for extremists to be ousted, have the middle-of-the-road centrist frustrate their progressive one-time electors and result in a return to power of the far right everybody agrees is a worse alternative. That's objectively worse.

The real question is not why centre-right liberals keep frustrating progressives with broken promises and slow action. The question is why does that translate into disengagement instead of left-wing alternatives gaining support. It is a constant throughout for the far right to effectively capitalize on every single bit of discontent by either converting right-leaning people or disengaging left-leaning people from the system altogether. Where is the left-wing populism? Why are they absent from this conversation? How much do you need to suck at politics to fail to build any amount of momentum under these circumstances?

It is so annoying that instead of solving the problem of abortion and rights of LGBT people, these issues are still being talked about. There's no harm in being more liberal in these areas. There are far more important areas to focus on, such as public health, energy and the environment, fair wages, housing, migration, education and proper management of the state budget.

They're just wasting time as always.

American here. Our shitty president is Donald (trump) and another weird rich Nazi terrorizing us is (Elon) Musk. Elon Musk was satirized as Elon Tusk in an episode of Rick and Morty.

So I saw a conglomeration of the two names on a platform that screams about the two of them commonly.

I had to read about Tusk being a real person to believe it wasn't only serious, but separate.

Just thought that was just barely interesting enough to say.

Sorry to hear about your rights. I hope you get them back. Abortion is a good option to have.