Poland will bus in "supporters" for Trump's visit. Too funny.
Two articles - The Guardian and Newsweek
Poland’s courting of Trump is a few supporters short of a picnic
Poland’s rightwing government is pulling out all the stops for what it sees as its greatest foreign policy achievement to date: a visit to Warsaw today by US president Donald Trump. In what has to be acknowledged as wily diplomacy, the Law and Justice (PiS) government is appealing to the US president’s achilles heel: his vanity, reportedly luring him with promises of adoring crowds, in contrast to the chillier receptions he can expect in western Europe.
Meanwhile, the defence minister, Antoni Macierewicz, described Trump as “a man who is changing the shape of the world’s political scene”, adding that his “historic” visit would *** “once and for all, erase (Poland’s)experience of occupation and Soviet enslavement”.***
Moreover, the Pew survey showed 46% of Poles expressed confidence in Angela Merkel’s global leadership. Twice as many Poles now trust the global leadership of a German chancellor over that of an US president, a remarkable development taking into consideration Poles’ historically strong pro-US stance and post-second world war fears of “German domination”, which are consistently stoked by the current government in Warsaw.
So even if news agencies beam pictures of seemingly numerous pro-Trump Poles from his visit in Warsaw, this should not be taken to mean widespread support for the US president or his policies within Polish society in general. Most of the crowd will be the bussed-in PiS supporters, who are generally more sympathetic towards Trump, plus of course a number who might turn up out of curiosity at seeing first-hand the world’s most controversial politician.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/05/poland-trump-supporters-picnic-us-president
Trump will find a rare European friend in Poland, a country governed by its own nationalistic government and encouraged by the new U.S. president’s intention to shake up the global political order. Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said that, like Trump, Poland’s government was being attacked by “liberals, post-communists, lefties and genderists.” He added that Trump was “a man who is changing the shape of the world’s political scene.”
“It’s going to be huge—absolutely huge,” Law and Justice party member Dominik Tarczynski said. “They just love him, the people in Poland—they just really love him.”
Tarczynski, as all members of the ruling party have been instructed to do, will bus in 50 of his constituents to provide a very different reception for Trump than he is likely to receive in Hamburg, where up to 100,000 protesters are expected. The tactic is a mirror of that adopted when Poland was a member of the Soviet Bloc, and the Communist Party would bus agreeable crowds to Warsaw to greet visiting dignitaries from Moscow.
Some have argued that such provisions are unnecessary. U.S. presidents tend to get warm welcomes in Poland and 73 percent of Poles have a favorable view of the U.S., according to a Pew Research Center survey released last week.
Yet, while Trump shares much of the nationalistic anti-immigrant policies of its ruling party, just 23 percent of Poles have confidence in him. That compares to the 58 percent that expressed confidence in Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama at the end of his second term.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/trump-poland-crowds-bus-communist-632124%3Famp%3D1
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