Peadar de Burca: We live in a post-truth, upside-down world where bad is good

100,000 covid-19 deaths officially recorded in the UK and yet the polls remain bafflingly in Boris Johnson’s favour at 40%.

In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s approval rating is at 37%, the highest since he took office, despite the country experiencing the world’s second-deadliest coronavirus outbreak.

And let’s not forget that 74 million Americans wanted Trump to be their Emperor even though he openly advocated intravenous doses of bleach. To date, these three leaders have ushered in a brave new world of 800,000 deaths.

It makes you wonder how bad their predecessors were? Were they turning up to work dressed as clowns and covered in childrens’ blood?

Then again, Boris Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill lost the 1945 general election by a landslide, two months after he was part of the team which found a cure for the dreaded Nazi-virus. If Johnson has learned anything from his famous predecessor, it’s that the electorate likes to punish accomplishments. In the car-crash world of populist governments, where right-minded Wyborcza readers like you and me are beset by the punctured condom feeling of betrayal and injustice, failure inexplicably keeps men like Kaczynski in power.

We live in a post-truth, upside-down world where bad is good, where a Warsaw prosecutor drops charges against far-right nationalists who threw a protesting woman down a flight of stairs. Have you seen photos of this? They are heart-stoppingly awful. But in Jaro’s inverted La-La Land, we are told to believe in this lightless version of Poland.

We are told to believe, according to prosecutor, Michał Marcinkowski that “there was no public interest in the case.” How much more are we expected to swallow? That one of the men who threw the woman, Robert Bąkiewicz, who is also the President of the nationalist Independence March Association, is a gentle soul who likes long walks on the beach, reading Japanese Haiku poetry and knitting replicas of his favourite Jewish historical figures from unicorn hair? That he was helping the woman, who had previously told him her secret ambition since she was a child was to fly?

The nationalist Independence March Association: where dreams come true. I don’t know about you, but I’m repulsed by the PiS project. It’s like the sexist joke where a man tells his buddy that his one night stand was so ugly, he needed three paper bags. One for her. One for him. And one for the dog.

I could do with a dozen such bags to protect my friends and family, to blot out each new hi-jacking of morality Jaro thrusts upon us. Most Poles, I suspected, felt differently. Then, a few hours ago, a poll taken by onet.pl came to me, tied to a little canister on the heel of the Wyborcoza pigeon. PiS’s popularity was down to 33% with 40% against. Half those polled were unhappy with Morawiecki and the government’s economic plans.

For a few moments, I was euphoric. The tide was turning. Populism’s foul epoch was coming to an end. Reality soon kicked in. Reports are that PiS are planning a massive reboot, with a new grand plan for Poland and a new PM. The illusion of change and the lack of a credible opposition means they are still the only show in town.

Send your paper bags to me care of Toszek.

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