The liberal misunderstanding: The election in Poland reveals fundamental problems of all modern democracies

Poland is the most important EU member state in Eastern Europe. One might therefore have assumed that the outcome of the Polish presidential election—which came as a surprise to many—would electrify the European public. But that didn't happen. The day after the election, the event was already being relegated to "also running" status in the newscasts, and one day later, it had disappeared completely.

This testifies to Western Europe's general disinterest in Eastern European countries. It also overlooks the fact that the Polish election highlighted dilemmas that are not unique to Poland. Rafal Trzaskowski, the pro-European mayor of Warsaw and close to Donald Tusk's government, did not win the election. The winner – albeit narrowly – was the politically inexperienced newcomer Karol Nawrocki, who was put forward by Jaroslaw Kaczynski's right-wing nationalist PiS party.

Poland, which had just returned to the EU's normal path, appears to be intent on pursuing its strangely archaic national path again. The election in Poland acts as a warning sign, highlighting fundamental problems of all modern democracies.

As with all elections of the past ten years, it became clear that Poland is, in a sense, composed of two equal halves. One half is – roughly speaking – the urbanites and the academically educated, who benefit from the country's tremendous economic modernization. The other half consists predominantly of the rural population and the less educated. They are often disadvantaged, but above all, the brave new world of modernization and acceleration is alien to them.

Both camps are like tightly knit blocs. When Donald Tusk won the parliamentary elections in October 2023, many hoped he would succeed in dissolving this rigid polarization and winning over many modernization skeptics. This clearly failed. Whatever he did, one half of the electorate distrusted Tusk in a very fundamental way.

This also contains a lesson for other European states. With his silver tongue and his woke speeches, Emmanuel Macron has failed to drive the Rassemblement national onto the defensive. Just as it is doubtful whether any kind of coherent "good policy" can deprive the AfD of its aura as a people's party. Janusz Reiter, former Polish ambassador to Germany, explained the success of Karol Nawrocki, who is close to the right-wing nationalist PiS, as follows: "He essentially promised: We will reform Poland, but we will not reform Polish values. They are not up for discussion."

During the election campaign, Nawrocki invoked few things more fervently than normality. This is easy to mock. In a rapidly changing world, what one might call "normal" is rapidly declining. Many things that were once certain can no longer be taken for granted; there are fewer and fewer traditions that have been valid for ages and that are self-evident. Traditions that rest on their own, without any justification.

The liberal misunderstanding lies in the belief that one only needs to explain this fact carefully enough – and everyone will be convinced that it's better to adapt to the accelerating confusion of the present. But that's precisely what many voters stubbornly refuse to do. For them, normality remains normality. Bratwurst remains bratwurst. Family remains family: father, mother, child(ren).

Enlightenment has a hard time tackling this. The enraged consider liberals arrogant, know-it-alls, and, above all, see them as messengers of a hostile world. They don't believe a word they say. This could be one of the reasons for the meteoric rise of fake news and lies. Karol Nawrocki won the election despite his lack of a clean slate. He was a hooligan, allegedly procuring prostitutes and engaging in a fraudulent housing deal.

In Tusk's world, this disqualified him, but not among voters in the conservative bloc. Although honesty and family are highly valued there, and the Catholic Church plays a major role, Nawrocki was elected. Even though it was known in this milieu that the allegations were valid, people believed Nawrocki when he denied everything. A new understanding of truthfulness is being practiced here.

Sociologist Krzysztof Wojciechowski has said of the unexpected triumph of false claims: "You demonstrate strength when you can free yourself from the truth and become independent." This applies to Nawrocki as much as it does to Trump and Alice Weidel. The rejection of logic is considered a vital strength, a characteristic of someone who has the power to simply disregard the laws of mathematics, as well as the rules of logic and decency. In this world, the liberal is declared a weakling—but nevertheless dangerous.

The fluidity of the situation, despite the apparent immovability of the two blocs, is demonstrated by the fact that the majority of young people in Poland voted right-wing this time, thus helping Nawrocki to victory – while Tusk's electoral alliance won the parliamentary election in October 2023 only thanks to the support of young voters. According to a poll, 55 percent of entrepreneurs voted for the liberal-conservative presidential candidate Rafal Trzaskowski. That's a majority, but a narrow one.

Considering that Poland's booming economy actually needs the EU, free trade, and a liberalism that isn't necessarily bound to tradition, it's surprising that so many entrepreneurs didn't vote for the economic liberal Trzaskowski. This shows that economic liberalization doesn't automatically have to go hand in hand with political and, above all, social liberalization. You can be an AI fan and fundamentally reject the right to abortion.

This isn't an exclusively Polish phenomenon either: Elon Musk is similarly wired. And China isn't the only country that has long demonstrated that rapid modernization doesn't necessarily lead to an open society. The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers of the late 18th century were still certain that the division of labor and the boom in industry would sooner or later lead to a liberal society of wealthy and free people. Poland, among others, is proving today that this was probably a premature dream.

And Poland has revealed yet another weakness of the liberal party system. In this system, it was taken for granted that it had to be the more or less cosmopolitan elites who shaped politics. Poland shows that things can be done differently. And that the liberal spectrum is perplexed by this fact. Karol Nawrocki is not the first person to rise directly from a pre-political and somewhat dingy realm to high government office. His alienation from the institutions has not harmed him, but rather benefited him. Conversely, left-wing, liberal, and liberal-conservative parties are finding it increasingly difficult to produce convincing young talent. And so the wrong people are being pushed onto the launching pad.

Take the USA, for example. Half of the fourteen post-war American presidents belonged to the Democratic Party. However, this party, steeped in tradition and deeply rooted in the middle class and connected to the mainstream, has recently simply failed to find a suitable candidate for the presidency: There was simply no alternative to the pale Kamala Harris. And in 2016, the party already made a mistake when it chose Hillary Clinton, a candidate who, while well-received within the party, was perceived outside of liberal circles as an arrogant representative of the upper class.

France's bourgeois parties will face similar difficulties when they search for someone who can challenge the Rassemblement national in the presidential election. And that's exactly what happened in Poland: Rafal Trzaskowski was the wrong candidate for the bourgeois camp. But there was no better one.

The mayor of Warsaw is rather conservative; in Germany, the CDU would be his political platform. At the same time, he belongs to the urban elite and felt compelled to pay tribute to the lifestyle of progressive city dwellers. For example, he had the crosses removed from the capital's schools and supported the LGBTQ community. This may have helped him in the cities, but not in the countryside – where, of course, it was also noticed that Trzaskowski did this for tactical reasons. This created the impression that he was not "authentic." His own milieu supported him halfheartedly, but for his opponents, he was a striking example of liberal hypocrisy.

Liberal parties in the broadest sense are apparently increasingly struggling to produce candidates capable of garnering a majority. These candidates would need to be able to combine liberal convictions with a sense of the legitimacy of positions that are popular outside liberal circles.

Liberal democracy is in danger of losing its inclusive power. This is undoubtedly due in part to the seductive power of populists who operate with the illusion of simple, feel-good solutions. But it is also, and not insignificantly, due to the failures of those who claim to have first recourse to liberalism and democracy. If bourgeois democrats want to remain capable of governing, they must prove, not only verbally, that they are part of the social majority.

Thomas Schmid is a journalist and publicist. He was editor-in-chief and publisher of the "Welt" newspaper.