It’s the (Global) Economy, Stupid: Poland, the NBA, and the 2020 Election.

On the surface, three widely divergent stories which featured prominently in the news this week — the NBA’s agonizingly slippery response as to how to respond to a generic tweet from Rockets GM Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong’s protests, President Trump’s increasingly brazen appeal to racial divisions as an electoral strategy during a Minneapolis speech, and the success of Law and Justice, Poland’s authoritarian populist party in Poland’s parliamentary elections- are wholly unconnected, spanning three different continents and political systems. Under the surface, however, these stories are directly connected and reveal a far deeper truth about the world created by the flow of global capital.

First, Poland. During the Communist era, Poles had a saying: Our is a like a radish- red on the outside only. The West long believed in a romantic notion of an underlying Polish spirit of liberal democratic values, united with the Atlantic community in heart if not in government, straining at the leash of its Soviet masters. After the Solidarity-led fall of Communism in Poland thirty years ago, Western hopes appeared vindicated: the new Polish republic emerged as a successful democracy, building a system of government which appeared to adopt the best of Western style liberalism, separation of powers, and the rule of law.