On Sunday June 1, Polish voters will elect their president, a decision that will have consequences far beyond Poland’s borders. They will choose between a pro-American conservative who promises to protect Polish independence and the Poles’ staunch commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance, and a progressive who would subordinate Warsaw’s foreign and military policies to Brussels.

The first candidate is Karol Nawrocki, who won Donald Trump’s endorsement during a meeting in the Oval Office. A youthful historian and political novice, Nawrocki is backed by the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS). The second is Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and the choice of the EU and Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s left-leaning Civic Platform (PO). In the words of Kristi Noem who spoke recently at CPAC Poland, Trzaskowski’s win would be “an absolute train wreck.” 

Kristi Noem has a point. 

Tusk wants his ally to win the presidency and rubber-stamp his pro-Brussels agenda to help him pay back his own electoral debts.

When he was rejected by the Polish voters in 2015, Tusk spent eight years in Brussels, attacking his conservative Law and Justice opponents, first as the EU Council president and then the head of EPP, EU Parliament’s biggest party. The EU establishment, their media allies, and U.S. pundits repeated ad nauseam Tusk’s spurious accusations against the conservative government in Warsaw concerning the rule of law, human rights, and climate change.

Meanwhile, the conservative government defended children from ideological indoctrination, rebuilt the armed forces, invested in reliable energy infrastructure, and protected the eastern border—NATO’s eastern flank—from a surge of illegal migrants. But it was no match to the liberal propaganda machine lavishly funded from abroad.

When Tusk returned to power in December 2023, he launched an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition, including the illegal takeover of public media, the unlawful defunding of Law and Justice, and the unconstitutional subjugation of the judiciary and the national prosecutor office. In Poland today, opposition activists face arrests, interrogations, intimidation, even torture. 

I should know—to escape persecution and continue the fight, for the past five months I’ve been living in Budapest under the protection of the Hungarian government. Mine is the first political asylum granted to a Polish dissident since the fall of communism in 1989.

Tusk’s abuses of power are egregious enough to prompt an inquiry by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and legal action against the government of Poland in the European Court of Human Rights. Recent reports of illegal presidential campaign financing by companies linked to the leadership of the U.S. Democratic Party prompted another letter of concern to the European Commission President from the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

A compliant president would only accelerate the changes. 

While the powers of the Polish president are more limited than in the U.S., he is the head of state able to veto key appointments and legislation. A victory by Trzaskowski would give the current pro-Brussels government full control over all the organs of power—and a free hand to embrace aggressively liberal policies. On the other hand, a Nawrocki victory would check those designs and protect Poland’s sovereignty and its cultural identity. 

The presidential election in Poland is about resisting ideological pressure, forced relocation of migrants from Western Europe, and liberal social policies imposed by Brussels. But it is above all about freedom, sovereignty, and Poland’s strategic security posture in the face of the European Union’s plan to centralize power. Tusk and Trzaskowski would implement that plan without resistance—which is precisely why they are heavily promoted and supported from abroad.

It’s no coincidence that the media assault against the pro-sovereignty candidate is spearheaded by Onet, a Polish-language outlet co-owned by German publisher Axel Springer, which also owns the fervently pro-Brussels Politico. Onet is known as a go-to publication for targeting conservatives in Poland. Debunking their slanders in Polish courts typically takes years. By then, voters will move on.

Polish voters face a strategic and civilizational decision about their country’s future. One path leads to handing all the branches of power to the pro-Brussels Left, making Poland yet another province in a European superstate—stripped of sovereignty, strategically irrelevant, and with no say in key political, security, economic, or cultural issues. Even the 5 percent of Polish GDP currently devoted to defense could fall under German economic and political control. 

The conservative alternative protects checks and balances and gives voters more time to think about the kind of country they want. It shows a path to a proud and sovereign Poland, defending its Christian identity, standing as a strong and trustworthy ally of the United States in Europe, implementing joint energy and security initiatives, and strengthening a zone of stability along NATO’s eastern flank as the U.S. confronts its greatest geopolitical challenge, China.