The authoritarian hangover

Summary

Podcast Summary: Today, Explained – "The authoritarian hangover"

Date: February 24, 2026
Hosts: Noel King and Myles Bryan
Location: Warsaw, Poland

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Episode Overview

In "The authoritarian hangover," Today, Explained examines Poland’s fraught transition from nearly a decade of increasingly authoritarian rule under the conservative Law and Justice party to a liberal government. Using Poland as a case study, the hosts explore the global dilemma: How do democracies rebuild after authoritarian backsliding, and what are the dangers when democratic norms are bent or broken in the process? Through conversations with Polish journalists, activists, political scientists, and politicians, they reveal the deep complexities and lingering consequences of wresting back democracy—and how the backlash to both authoritarianism and hurried liberal repair can fuel the rise of even more extreme political forces.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Poland: A Case Study in Authoritarian Backlash and Democratic Restoration

• The hosts travel to Warsaw to report firsthand on Poland’s political context, where the Law and Justice party (PiS) ruled from 2015 to 2023, pushing the country toward authoritarianism.
• In 2023, liberals won back power, promising to undo the damage—but quickly found that reversing authoritarian changes is fraught, controversial, and can create new legitimacy crises.

Quote:

"In 2015, Poland elected a conservative party called Law and Justice ... they engaged in a lot of authoritarian behavior. And then in 2023, Poland unelected law and justice and set about trying to undo what had been done to the country. How that went coming up on Today Explained." – Noel King (00:32)

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2. The State Media Takeover and Its Chaotic Undoing

• Interview with Michel Rakon, former anchor and later head of state TV, who helped transform Polish state media into a pro-government, conspiratorial outlet.
  • Under PiS, state TV was accused of spreading anti-LGBT, antisemitic, and ultra-conservative content.
  • Example: Airing a documentary that framed LGBT activists as a foreign "invasion" (03:53); warning state money would be diverted for Jewish restitution if liberals gained power (04:05).
• When the liberals won, they unceremoniously shut down PiS-controlled state TV by police intervention—an act widely condemned as illegal and undemocratic, even by liberal activists.

Memorable Moment:

"They basically took the police and stormed the TVP building and switched off the television." – Michel Rakon (05:32)
"I thought that I'm just living through some like wellian episode. ... What they did was like they Overtook the public media. Not in a legal way that was not legal. To this day, it's not legal." – Dominika Lasota, Activist (07:50)

Insight:
The liberal government’s move, while intended to restore media integrity, instead deepened public cynicism, echoing exactly the sort of lawlessness they’d campaigned against.

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3. The "Restoration Paradox": When Liberals Bend or Break Norms

• Political scientist Ben Stanley discusses the impossible trilemma post-authoritarian governments face: reversals must be legal, quick, and effective—but only two are possible at once (09:30).

  Breakdown:

  • Legal & Quick: Not effective.
  • Legal & Effective: Slow and complicated.
  • Quick & Effective: May require breaking the law.

Quote:

"2 out of 3 in this case is really bad." – Noel King (10:02)
"...one of the problems that has been exposed in Poland is that certain norms have been overturned ... it’s very difficult to restore the norms that existed before that illiberal government came came into power." – Ben Stanley (10:56)

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4. Generation Frustration: Youth and the Far Right

• Liberal activist Dominika Lasota explains why many young voters and activists, disillusioned by the centrists’ compromise and slowness, are turning to the far right, which promises radical change (11:24).
• Rising figures: Grzegorz Braun, a far-right politician known for open antisemitism and extreme stunts (such as extinguishing a menorah in parliament).
• A conservative voter (Kuba) expresses disdain for both old parties and gravitating to Braun for his "clean" reputation and outsider appeal (22:07).

Quote:

"Young people are sick of this system ... I'm not surprised at all that a lot of people go to the far right because the far right gives them a simple message, yeah, screw this, let's ... shake up the whole establishment." – Dominika Lasota (11:24)

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5. Liberal Paralysis and Political Trade-Offs

• The liberal coalition failed to deliver on key campaign promises, like easing the strict abortion law, due to lack of coalition unity and presidential vetoes (17:20).
  • Rafal Trzaskowski, liberal mayor of Warsaw, describes coalition constraints and deep frustration (18:22).
  • Political compromise weakened their base—especially youth and women—and emboldened the opposition.

Quote:

"They thought that if they're going to be more right wing than the right wingers, they will pull in the right wing voters... Well, guess what? If you are more right wing than the right wingers, you will lose your core base." – Dominika Lasota (20:21)
"Let's all grow up." – Rafal Trzaskowski (21:25)

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6. Backlash and the Rise of the Farther Right

• Law and Justice voters, disillusioned by existing options and economic discontent, are shifting toward openly extreme candidates like Braun.
• Antisemitic and conspiratorial rhetoric, once taboo, is gaining mainstream traction and polling strength (23:09).
• The episode draws a parallel to U.S. politics, highlighting how focusing only on defeating “the bad guys” without building a positive vision leaves a vacuum for more dangerous forces.

Quote:

"So all this wild eccentric has to do is call himself anti establishment and he becomes a political force ... what used to be fringe is becoming more mainstream." – Myles Bryan (24:51)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• The Impossible Task:

  "So the big question for this government has been to what extent is the imperative of restoring liberal democracy something that justifies either bending liberal democratic norms and laws or breaking them outright?"
  – Ben Stanley (10:05)

• Generation Z's Rebellion:

  "Honestly, I'm not surprised at all that a lot of people go to the far right because the far right gives them a simple message, yeah, screw this, let's just, you know, shake up the whole establishment."
  – Dominika Lasota (11:24)

• Electoral Calculus Backfires:

  "They lost the young, they lost the women."
  – Dominika Lasota (20:45)

• Right Wing Extremism Enters Mainstream:

  "Brown has denied that the Nazis used gas chambers at Auschwitz ... and the scary part is, rather than turning voters off, Brown's party and his paranoia are being embraced and defended."
  – Noel King (23:12, 23:55)

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Important Timestamps

• State TV’s Transformation & Takeover: 02:02 – 06:55
• Activist Backlash to Liberal Illegalities: 07:32 – 08:27
• Ben Stanley’s Norms Framework: 09:01 – 10:56
• Youth Drifting to Far Right: 11:24
• Liberal Democrats’ Abortion Law Failure: 17:20 – 18:22
• Presidential Election Drama: 18:51 – 20:08
• Collapse of Liberal Support: 21:33 – 22:25
• Interview with Dissatisfied Conservative Voter: 22:07 – 24:22
• Far Right Antisemitism Becomes Acceptable: 23:09 – 24:05
• The Fight for Democracy’s Meaning: 26:30 – 26:56

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Reversing authoritarian rule is never as smooth or clean as campaign slogans promise; it often involves choosing between legality, effectiveness, and speed, and can force liberals into uncomfortable positions.
• Departures from democratic norms, even when intended for restoration, can delegitimize government and alienate key supporters.
• Unaddressed economic and social frustrations, combined with fatigue over "lesser evil" politics, create fertile ground for far-right extremism to go mainstream.
• Final Moral:

  "The lesson from Poland is you have to give people a reason to show up for the battle." – Myles Bryan (26:56)

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For Listeners:

If you haven’t followed Polish politics, this episode illustrates how any democratic society—especially one with recent authoritarian rule—can find itself torn between flawed, paralyzed liberalism and a rising, dangerous far right. The Polish story serves as a warning and a lesson for democracies facing similar challenges.

Transcript

[A]

Noel, It's Today Explained. I'm Noel King.

[B]

And I'm Myles Bryan.

[A]

And we are in a very cold Warsaw, Poland. Doing what?

[B]

Beautiful Warsaw, Poland. Let me start with a question, Noel. If the Democrats are able to win back the presidency in the United States in 2028, how are they gonna wind back all the stuff the second Trump administration has done?

[A]

I have no idea. But the reason that we're in Poland, why were Myles Bryan and I freezing in the street in Warsaw while he asked me questions I have no answers to?

[B]

Okay, come on, tell him what we're doing.

[A]

Yeah. In 2015, Poland elected a conservative party called Law and Justice.

[B]

Law and justice had strong Trump 2 vibes. They engaged in a lot of authoritarian behavior.

[A]

And then in 2023, Poland unelected law and justice and set about trying to undo what had been done to the country. How that went coming up on Today Explained from vo.

[C]

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[B]

When the political winds change, will there

[D]

be accountability for those who bent the knee for the Trump administration?

[A]

If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are gonna play by the old rules and say, oh, nevermind, we'll forgive you, I think they've got another thing coming.

[D]

I'm Preet Bharara, and this week Ambassador

[B]

Susan Rice joins me to discuss leadership,

[D]

decision making and the state of the rule of law in America. The episode is out now. Search and follow. Stay tuned with Preet. Wherever you get your podcast.

[A]

You guys are covering Epstein files today?

[C]

Yes, among other things. Crazy story. Very interesting story.

[A]

Michel Rakon is a beloved anchor on what's basically the equivalent of Poland's Fox News.

[C]

Those are the journalists who are working on our daily evening show, which is gschai.

[B]

So Tuze, no work from home here?

[C]

Well, we work from everywhere.

[B]

When pols elected the conservative Law and Justice Party 11 years ago, the party that would dismantle many of the foundations of Polish democracy, including the media. Miho is working as an anchor at a tiny conservative news station.

[C]

Our viewership numbers were 0.02%. And I remember the Nielsen numbers back then when we got, when we got to like 50,000 of viewers, it was like, you know, like a high peak of our viewers.

[A]

But he had talent and he was a true conservative believer. So when Law and Justice won, they put him in charge of state TV they said, take this boring centrist behemoth that everyone watches to get straight news and then fall asleep on the couch and make hours. When you join, you're joining a station that, in your point of view, is, like, liberal.

[B]

It's.

[C]

Well, it's communist. It's not liberal. No, it's a com. It was a communist station back then.

[A]

You're coming on board as a.

[C]

And I'm an anti communist.

[A]

You're an anti communist. Okay, so immediately you have no friends. No, I'm just kidding. But, like, what was it like? You. Great.

[C]

I mean, it was great.

[A]

You're like a staunch conservative who gets a job at msnbc, Right. You're like, I don't know.

[C]

With a mission to completely reframe it, rebuild it.

[A]

How did you change the coverage when you took over as anchor?

[C]

I was just asking questions and inviting guests that were never invited to TV stations.

[A]

Conservative voices.

[C]

Not only.

[A]

The truth is, he was not just asking questions.

[B]

Yeah, he was not. State TV began laundering some really nasty stuff into their news coverage. Conspiracy theories, some winking at anti Semitism.

[A]

Just a few examples.

[B]

State TV aired a documentary about Poland's LGBT community, the title of which literally translates to invasion, which claimed LGBT advocates were conspiring with foreigners to undermine the country.

[A]

And during one election season, State TV warned that the liberal mayor of Warsaw, if he was elected to higher office, would divert state money from poor polls to, quote, satisfy Jewish claims for restitution for crimes committed during the Holocaust.

[B]

Unfortunately, it's the kind of stuff that a lot of viewers really like.

[A]

From 2015 to 2023, from what I understand, you did incredibly well. Your ratings grew. You were very, very popular. I don't know, maybe you're like Peter Jennings. You're like Wolf Blitzer. You're the biggest anchor on public television.

[C]

Wolf Blitzer got lower numbers.

[A]

Good answer.

[B]

But in 2023, law and justice was voted out. The Liberal Democrats were back in, and Rajon knew he had a target on his back.

[C]

If you are a sportsman. I play basketball. When you practice sports, you know that there are some rules and regulations. You cannot cross the line. When you shoot for three, it's a three pointer. If you shoot for two, it's a two pointer. Those rules are simple. You can foul five times in us, six times. So it was obvious for me that since the Polish public media is constructed by the bills that were run through the Polish Parliament, those are the rules of Polish law. Well, that time I was stupid. They just didn't play by the rules.

[A]

What did they Do? What did they do?

[C]

They basically took the police and stormed the TVP building and switched off the television.

[E]

The new Polish coalition government has sacked the governing bodies of the public media.

[A]

After rushing on set, the presenter explains to viewers that the channel has been taken off air before being ushered away himself.

[C]

So I was shocked because it's not only, it's not only stupid, it's also illegal, but it also hurts the institution because once you switch off the television, the TV station, it's like switching off the nuclear power plant. It's not like you're just switching it on the next minute and everything is fine.

[A]

Did you go on air that night or did they say that?

[C]

No, no, no, I was, I didn't go back on air in Polish television.

[A]

Mihel wasn't in exile for long. Within the day, in fact, he was back at the tiny conservative station where he started his career. He took along his colleagues and then he took cues from himself. He leaned into this bombastic conspiratorial style that he'd find honed at Polish state tv. And today he has built himself one of the biggest news stations in Poland.

[C]

The thing is that the numbers that we are having now are much higher than the numbers we had in the public television. You know why?

[B]

Why?

[C]

Polish people really hate censorship anyway.

[B]

It's hard to overstate how big a deal this was when the liberals pulled

[A]

the plug, cutting the cord on state media saying, you are done. It is such an aggressive move. It's like, yeah, the Liberal Democrats and Donald Tusk finally grew a pair. However, however, values.

[B]

Dominica Lasota had values. She'd marched and voted for the Liberal Democrats. She'd helped organ campaign to get them elected. But right in that moment, she found herself sympathizing with the authoritarians.

[E]

It was insane. Like the stuff they did was. It was insane.

[B]

Dominica is 24, she's an activist. She wanted the liberals to come in and rebuild after the damage law and justice had done to Poland. It seemed like if anyone should have been happy about pulling the plug on Rajon and foxified state tv, it would be her. Not so.

[E]

I was at my parents place. We like, we put up the TV to watch it and I thought that I'm just living through some like wellian episode. It was bizarre. It was done in a way that was, had nothing to do with any kind of democracy and any kind of like civility, which that was their whole platform. Like we're gonna respect democracy, we're gonna respect the rule of law. What they did was like they Overtook the public media. Not in a legal way that was not legal. To this day, it's not legal. The way the TV operates right now, it's actually illegal.

[A]

I have to say I really respect this take from Dominica.

[B]

Yeah, Liberal democratic values, they have to mean something. They can't just be what you pay lip service to until you regain power.

[A]

And this was certainly not a liberal move. So why would liberal Democrats resort to pulling the plug?

[B]

Well, to be fair, they had very few options. And this, as it turns out, is a problem for just about every liberal government that's elected after an authoritarian government has been in power.

[A]

Right. There are people who study this dynamic. In the case of Poland, that person is political scientist Ben Stanley. He's a Brit by birth, he's Polish by choice.

[F]

Came out to Poland in 2001, instantly fell in love with the place and just stayed a lot longer than I was expecting to. And that was really when I started to get interested in Polish politics in particular.

[A]

All right, so the liberals had been elected to restore democracy and Ben has a framework for how that generally ends up working. A liberal government can unwind what autocrats did quickly, effectively, so undefeated, do everything that they changed and finally, legally, quickly, effectively.

[B]

Legally sounds great, right? Except Ben's research suggested that it's basically impossible to do all of those at once.

[A]

So you can do things legally and

[F]

quickly, but it doesn't really effectively deal with the problem because there's only a limited impact of the things that it

[A]

can do legally and quickly, legally and effectively.

[F]

But this is a long and drawn out process because it involves things like overcoming presidential vetoes or quickly and effectively, but at the price of either bending or breaking the law.

[A]

You get the point. 2 out of 3 in this case is really bad.

[F]

So the big question for this government has been to what extent is the imperative of restoring liberal democracy something that justifies either bending liberal democratic norms and laws or breaking them outright? One of the problems that has been exposed in Poland is that certain norms have been overturned, things that the expectation was on the part of the political mainstream that people simply wouldn't do and simply wouldn't say, have been, have been done and said. I think that what can be learned from the Polish case is that once those things have been done and said, it's very difficult to restore the norms that existed before that illiberal government came came into power.

[B]

The liberal democrats had moved very quickly and very effectively on state media. But just pulling the plug like that, like, is that legal?

[A]

At the very least, it was pushing the limits. And that explains Dominica's outraged response. Now this was not just her response. A lot of people were angry about this and they were about to get angrier, and their rage would lead to something that no one expected.

[B]

Coming up what happens to Poland's politics when everyone got mad?

[E]

Young people are sick of this system of the political scene that's been literally shaped by the same bunch of boomers for the past 30 years. Honestly, I'm not surprised at all that a lot of people go to the far right because the far right gives them a simple message, yeah, screw this, let's just, you know, shake up the whole establishment.

[A]

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[B]

You're listening to Today Explained. If the young activist Dominica Lasoda represents the voice of Poland's frustrations, well, Rafael Tarzkowski is the target.

[F]

Great.

[D]

No introductions. Straight to the Straight to the business.

[B]

The people tasked with undoing what law and justice did are, of course the Liberal Democrats.

[A]

Rofel is a leading Liberal Democrat. In many ways he is peak Liberal Democrat. His dad's a jazz musician. He went to Oxford. He dresses the way Miles wishes he could dress.

[B]

Hey.

[A]

And he can communicate in five languages.

[B]

One of them is French. And he'll be the first person to remind you that despite the complaints about undemocratic behavior. The Liberal Democrats didn't just go around pulling the plug on everything their predecessors had done.

[D]

Half of the people I meet tell me you veer to the right and so on. La la la. Half of the people are saying, you're too soft, you're too nice, you're smiling too much. You should be banging them, you know, and you should be like them because it's simple. You should grab a baseball bat and you know, because otherwise you're not going to win with them.

[B]

No, in some cases they moved much

[A]

more slowly, possibly too slowly. Okay, so remember that the single biggest reason Polish Liberals beat Law and justice in 2023 was that voters were furious about this very strict abortion law.

[B]

One of the Liberals most important campaign promises was that they would loosen the abortion law. They promised to do it within 100 days of taking office. It's been 800ish days since then. And Polish abortion laws haven't changed. Why?

[A]

I want to ask you whether the government didn't move fast enough on this thing that obviously mattered to a lot of. A lot of Poles.

[D]

Well, it matters to me and it matters to all the members of my party. And we wanted to reverse this medieval law, but we have a coalition government and unfortunately one of our partners was against this.

[B]

Ah yes, the forever problem with alliances, you don't all want the same thing at the same time. The Liberals had teamed up with all sorts of parties in order to win the election against Law and Justice. Far left, sure, farmers, why not? Came back to bite them.

[D]

Unfortunately that would happen. And yes, I understand that people are angry and sometimes I share that anger, but I mean, unfortunately we didn't have the majority to push it on. And also we had a president who said that he would veto that.

[A]

Poland has a parliamentary system. The president who is elected in off years was still a holdover from Law and Justice. Now, president is not a job that has a ton of power in Poland, but the president does have veto power on laws, so he could veto any changes the Liberals tried to make to the abortion law. So the Liberal Democrats were going to need to get one of their guys elected president in order to get this done. Rafael, who we should say is the very popular mayor of Warsaw, was like, all right, I'll do it.

[B]

This race should have been a lock. The other main candidate running for president, Carl Novrotsky, was a baby faced, crazy person who'd never even run for office, much less the presidency.

[A]

A man who didn't just court scandal, he married it in March, it emerged that he had appeared on a TV show in disguise, blurred out and using a pseudonym to promote a book he had written about the life of a gangster. Then last month it was revealed he lied about acquiring a second apartment, the circumstances of which involved taking advantage of an elderly pensioner. But when it recently came out that he took part in a brawling Gdansk involving 140 rival football hooligans, Novotsky described the fight as a form of noble combat. Karol Novrotsky has taken to X to deny media reports he helped procure prostitutes for guests while working at a hotel. It must have felt like a lock for the mayor. Poland wanted sober leadership and that was him.

[B]

But still, Poland's a pretty divided country. So the mayor hedged. He backed away from the left and towards the center. The idea was to ease up on support for the gay community and immigrants and refugees in order to pick up more voters in the middle.

[A]

This did not work.

[B]

Carl Norotsky has won Poland's presidential election. Now he took just under 51% of the vote.

[F]

This is a major setback for the

[A]

liberals and the centrists.

[B]

A key part of Rafel's base, including young activists like Dominica. Lasota abandoned him.

[A]

Do you regret that you didn't activate around?

[E]

Oh, no, no. I mean, the fact that Novrotsky came into power was not, not, you know, it's not on us that we didn't mobilize. They thought that if they're going to be more right wing than the right wingers, they will pull in the right wing voters to their sides. Well, guess what? If you are more right wing than the right wingers, you will lose your core base. That's what happened. They lost the young, they lost the women.

[A]

Respectfully, do you look at the US elections and think Kamala Harris and I have a lot in common?

[D]

Well, it's hard to say because, you know, we've been preparing for this election for many, many months and we were leading a very, very active campaign. And somehow, you know, the people who vote for populace do not have that many qualms. They do not ask themselves so many questions. You know, they just vote for the guy who's closest to them. Whereas our side is always prevaricating, asking questions. They're not too happy with the candidate because he or she is not 100% their candidate. I mean, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, I can say it now. I mean, let's all grow up.

[A]

Hmm. I feel for Mr. Mayor, but let's all Grow up is not really a winning political message.

[B]

On abortion, Polish liberals had tried to move carefully and legally, and their own voters punish them for it. Law and Justice Party supporters must have been stoked. If everyone's mad at the liberals, that's a glide path back to power, right?

[A]

It was about 1,000 degrees below zero in the town of Minsk Mazowiecki. This is a town far more conservative than Warsaw, where we'd heard the farmers market was pretty lively, although by the time we got there, most people had gone home.

[B]

Wow, it's so over.

[A]

No one was out except for a man named Kuba, who was packing up

[B]

for the day, trying to do a story about Polish politics and how people are voting. Could we talk to you for a minute? He's 32, father of two, lives in a little village nearby.

[A]

Yeah, we do farm.

[B]

We have a family farm and we're selling vegetables from our farm.

[A]

Small family farm, two kids. We expected to hear that he liked law and justice.

[B]

That was not what happened. He said law and justice and the libs feel like the same evil these days. It's not exactly like that, but I think there is something to it. Kuba told us he does like Karel Nocky, the soccer brawl loving new president of Poland. But he loves this new guy on the scene, Gregory Spraun. You know, one thing is like, they don't. They don't steal. They're not involved in any scandals, so they seem clean. This was kind of an oh, shit moment. Kuba likes Gregor Braun. Gregor Braun isn't law and justice. He is farther right. Way farther right.

[E]

The trial of the highly disruptive and

[A]

inflammatory Polish MEP Grigosz Brown has begun in Warsaw.

[E]

The list of accusations is long.

[A]

We are being blackmailed by the Holocaust. Scary tale repeated here again and again. Brown is maybe best well known for mainstreaming something that had been confined to dog whistles in Polish political life. Anti Semitism. In 2023, during Hanukkah, brown blew out the candles of a menorah in the lobby of Poland's parliament building with a fire extinguisher. Brown has denied that the Nazis used gas chambers at Auschwitz and says he's just asking questions about how many Jews actually died in Poland's concentration camp.

[B]

Law and justice aligned figures toed the line on antisemitism when they were in power, but they never went full on Holocaust denialism.

[A]

And the scary part is, rather than turning voters off, Brown's party and his paranoia are being embraced and defended.

[B]

I don't think they discriminate against anyone. They're just trying to protect their country, you know, and in terms of, you know, Brown, yeah, he doesn't, I guess, like, he doesn't like those kinds of. That kind of impact. So, you know, he doesn't like Jews. That's why people think that he's an anti Semite. I think Jews are a problem. That's why Brian doesn't like them.

[A]

What is happening here?

[B]

It turns out a lot of conservative law and justice voters are moving to the right in a way that's going to sound familiar to Americans.

[A]

Yeah, life is expensive. Housing, kids, inflation has been a wild ride. Refugees from Ukraine's war are pouring into Poland, and law and justice had eight years in power, but the problems remain. So all this wild eccentric has to do is call himself anti establishment and he becomes a political force and people

[B]

are open to this new guy's far right extremes. Long just has spent years winking at antisemitism, embracing homophobia, demonizing their political enemies. That's where it's moving now. What used to be fringe is becoming more mainstream. Brown is currently on trial for putting out the menorah, and he's campaigning off of it. He refers to his supporters as the fire extinguisher movement. Seriously. And still his party is going up in the polls.

[A]

Meanwhile, over on the left, frustration about the liberals with their polished candidates who speak five languages and can't get anything done because they want to play by the rules of democracy has hollowed out their support.

[B]

Because you could imagine another Liberal government in 10 years on the line coming out of another conservative period in Poland trying to make these changes and facing the same problem. So, like, like, strategically, what bothers you the most? What could you live with? How do you weigh this stuff?

[E]

Well, I, I don't think that's the right question to ask. I think that what happened was that. And I see. And this is what's happening with a lot of, like, liberals or centrists around the world these days, that they are constantly just, you know, everything that they have to offer to the people is fighting against the evening worse guys. Right? So Democrats, yes, vote for us because we're gonna, you know, abolish Trump. And then when you talk to them or when you talk to Donald Tusk's people and, like, ask them, like, okay, so, like, once you abolish the bad guys, like, what is it that you're gonna offer to this nation? What kind of vision you have for this nation?

[A]

Poland got its democracy back. It wasn't easy. And as it turns out it wasn't nearly the end.

[B]

Because what is democracy? It's people voting. It's politicians figuring out how to get people to vote for them. So they make promises, they get things done. Or maybe they can't get things done, and so they appeal to our worst impulses instead.

[A]

Democracy is also rallying against that in the streets and then at the ballot box.

[B]

It's a fight, maybe one that never ends. But the lesson from Poland is you have to give people a reason to show up for the battle.

[A]

Miles Bryan produced today's episode, Jolie Myers edited, Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore engineered, and Andrea Lopez Crusado checked the facts. Thanks so much to Gregor Sokol, our fixer and Warsaw producer, for his insights into Poland's past and present. And for all the Greg stories. I'm Noel King.

[B]

And I'm Myles Bryan. This is today, explained. Sam.