Poland and the popular in populism

Aleks Szczerbiak explains that there's a part of the populism of Poland rightwing populist ruling party that could usefully be applied by parties of the left and the center-left (Explaining the popularity of Poland’s Law and Justice government EUROPP Blog 10/26/2017):

Why is the ruling party so popular? Perhaps most importantly, the government has delivered on several of the high-profile social spending pledges that were the key to its 2015 election success. The most significant of these were its extremely popular flagship ‘500 plus’ child subsidy programme for the first children of poorer households and every second and subsequent child in all families, and a law reversing the previous government’s deeply unpopular pension reforms, which had increased the retirement age to 67 (from 60 for women and 65 for men).

The ‘500 plus’ programme in particular has had an important symbolic effect by providing a significant and clearly identifiable financial boost to many low income households who felt frustrated that they had not shared sufficiently in Poland’s recent economic growth. Many Poles feel that, while politicians have often promised to help the less well-off, Law and Justice is the first party to actually deliver on these pledges on such a scale. [my emphasis]

The political opposition, he reports, "argue that [those popular social programs] place a massive strain on public finances." That argument, of course, is the sort of neoliberal, there-is-no-alternative dogma that has been widely shared for way too many years by both liberal and conservative parties in the West. Digby Parton reminds us of this recent American example (Tax-pocalypse now: GOP’s denial of reality hits critical mass Salon 11/30/2017):

When Barack Obama became president in 2009, he called together all the opinion leaders in Washington and announced that he was planning to propose a Grand Bargain that would include a cut in "entitlement" spending in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to allow the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans to expire. It had progressive Democrats in a state of agitation, feeling that the president was selling out the signature achievement of the New Deal for a temporary tax hike.

Szczerbiak continues to explain what he seems to be presenting as the most important opposition arguments:

Economic growth is strong, investment increasing, unemployment is at its lowest level for 25 years, wages have started to rise, and increased tax revenues have actually led to a reduction in the state budget deficit.

For sure, the government’s critics argue that it is benefiting from a more general upswing in the European economy and a short-term consumption boom rather than increased productivity and private sector investment. The level of public debt remains high and increased social spending could, they say, cause serious problems in the future if there is an economic downturn and the fiscal situation deteriorates. Nonetheless, Poles are more optimistic about the state of both the economy and their personal finances than they have been for many years. [my emphasis]

But I wouldn't want to make this into a simple argument that "economics overrides prejudice," or the like.

Because as Szczerbiak makes clear, those increases in social spending come in a political package that includes militant xenophobia and Islamophobia and some authoritarian elements in governance, as well as a strong EU-skeptical component. for instance, "a June 2017 poll conducted by the IBRiS agency for the ‘Polityka’ journal found that 51% of respondents actually supported leaving the EU if this was the only way to prevent Poland from being forced to admit Muslim migrants."

Some critics of rightwing populism use the term "Herrenvolk democracy" to describe a situation in which the in-group (Real Americans, Real Poles, Real Russians, etc.) enjoy benefits, including social programs traditionally more associated with the left than the right, while excluding the hated out-groups (Arabs, foreigners, Muslims, whoever). It's not easy to say how much of the appeal of rightwing populism in Poland, the US and other Western countries has to do with the increase benefits for the in-group or to the psychological satisfactions of having a weaker group to hate and to whom one can feel superior.

But I do say with confidence that any party that calls itself left or center-left should be actively advocating and defending such benefits, not apologizing for them or doing what Obama did in proposing his Grand Bargain, i.e., adopt conservative/neoliberal framing of essential programs like Social Security and Medicare and actually advocate to cut benefits on them.