Night and Day Watch in Washington

In the 2016 general election, will Americans choose the party of inequality or the party of the NSA?

As we know, last week Obama traveled to Europe to breathe new life into the European allies — to reassure some of them and mobilize others. During his stay in Amsterdam he had a chance to speak in front of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch,” which he personally praised as the most impressive backdrop he has had for a press conference. The power of the symbol does its work — the Guard strolling around a dark city, confirming the union between Protestants and Catholics, allied against the forces of chaos.

“The Night Watch” has been inspiring current pop-politics and pop culture — and I am not only talking about Terry Pratchett and Alistair MacLean’s best-sellers. “Night Watch” is also the first part of a Russian trilogy about the conflict between good and evil, Timur Bekmambetova’s box office success which earned more money in Russia than “The Lord of the Rings.” This “supernatural, urban fantasy” from 2004 and 2006 (when the second part, “Day Watch,” was released) is like a Cold War story in brief. For the resistant. The tension that links the world of modern Moscow with the world of devils and angels resembles “The Master and Margarita,” and the contrast between the two camps of light and darkness is a dualism in the style of Putin — or in the style of American domestic politics, blaming one another for bringing this country to ruin. Let’s explain to those who haven’t seen the movie: The main task of the night watch is to keep a close eye on the day watch, and the main task of the day watch is to keep the night watch in check. Neither of them has enough time for any other activity.

One of the biggest paradoxes of the current international situation is the fact that the Ukrainian case — the way we Poles see it — pushes us in the direction of the American right wing.

Our own interest — as seen by the Polish Center and the Left Wing — is to get as close to the United States as possible, both in terms of army and economy. Only the traditional Republican Party can help us with both aspects. In no way could it be the Democrats or the Liberal Party, which has been trying to grow for years and hasn’t succeeded yet. Only the dying traditional Republican dinosaurs are content to devote money to army reinforcement in Eastern Europe — negotiations regarding the budget are now being conducted. They were the only ones willing to negotiate a possible transport of gas from America to Europe, which is where Poland sees a chance to become independent of energy from Russia.

Accidents in Ukraine have shown better than anything else that the left and the right wing are not clear concepts, independent of a specific political situation, and that leftism in America or in Western Europe is not equivalent to the Left Wing in Poland or — in this situation — in Ukraine. In any case, in two years’ time we will witness a changing of the guard in the United States and it is quite probable that — by the principle of balance between Day Watch and Night Watch, or in accordance with the pendulum mechanism — power will go to the Republicans. Last week, Washington was thrilled with Nate Silver’s forecast, which assumes that the Senate will be taken over by the Grand Old Party. The same analyst, who predicted the victory for the Democrats in 2008, now appears to resemble a demonic Cassandra. Especially because we are almost in the middle of 2014 and the rough and tumble is just starting.

The presidential election will be held more than two years from now. Although we do not know the candidates yet, Hillary Clinton admitted off the record that she is considering running in the election. In response to that, the Republicans — who are unable to find their own candidate — started a campaign saying that Hillary is simply too old to be the president. Strangely, no one remembers that Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s while in the White House. Among potential candidates from the Republican Party, for want of anything better, we could name Ted Cruz from Texas, on the condition that Americans will forgive him for his parliamentary obstruction and the role he took in the government shutdown in the fall of 2013.

Ted Cruz has cowboy boots and not much to say — only that Obamacare will ruin America, as hardly anyone will benefit from public health service.

Meanwhile, the registration deadline passed literally a few days ago and the Obama administration triumphed — thanks to the presidential campaign targeting hipsters, the Obamacare website became extremely popular. On April 1, the website hit 7.1 million sign-ups, which exceeds a minimum threshold set by the government.

Even though there are no candidates for the presidential election yet, we already know what America is going to argue about in 2015 and 2016. Or what voters will be threatened with. And you can threaten in two ways: with an increase in social inequality (the Democrats’ weapon), and with the government that interferes in citizens’ personal lives, whose symbol is the omnipresent NSA (the Republicans’ weapon). The latter is a primary focus for another candidate of the right wing — Rand Paul, son of Dr. Ron Paul, who assures Americans that regardless of political orientation, they are being spied on and they are endangered. It will be difficult to make it look like a traditional Republican campaign, as Rand Paul is totally liberal, a greatly controversial figure. Let’s not forget that Day Watch is very conservative, and Rand Paul represents personal freedom, immigration reform and all those things that the GOP is not ready for.

As for inequalities, this topic remains forever on Night’s Watch banners — the center and the center-left. On Wednesday, April 2, the Supreme Court abolished some of the restrictions regulating conditions for financial support for presidential campaigns, linking the world of money and the world of politics even more. Recently, Americans have been discussing a book by French economist Thomas Piketty, who compares America of the 21st century with 19th-century Europe as depicted in novels by Austin and Balzac. The level of inequality in the United States is “probably higher than in any other society at any time in the past, anywhere in world.” The New Yorker’s John Cassidy writes that the logic of capitalism didn’t foresee the accumulation of capital by a class of “super-managers,” in light of which the “American Dream” looks like a dreary joke, or even worse, the opium for the nation.

This choice Americans are about to make — deciding if they are more afraid of the CIA or Wall Street — will influence the nature of the Polish-American relationship and the presence of the United States in Poland.