The 48-year-old Duda squeaked in for his second term as Polish president in July 2020, winning by less than two per cent of the vote against liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski of the Civic Platform. Duda ran with the support of the rightist Law and Justice Party (PiS). His ugly campaign whipped up hatred against Jews, liberals, foreigners and the LGBTQI+ community to mobilize their reactionary small-town base à la Donald Trump.
Duda set himself up as the ultimate Trump wannabe in a pre-election visit to the White House in June 2020. He was the first foreign leader shameless enough to visit during Trump’s coronavirus debacle, with the streets full of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Trump proclaimed Duda was doing a ‘terrific job’ and promised to pull 1,000 US troops away from ‘peacenik’ Germany to Poland, as Duda was willing to hike Poland’s military budget to cover the costs.
