The former left would now vote for the far-right Grzegorz Braun

Grzegorz Braun's conversation with editor Łukasz Jankowski on Radio Wnet resonated widely. During the conversation, the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown said the following: "Ritual murder is a fact, and let's say Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake. And anyone who talks about it is accused of terrible things, condemned to dishonor and faith."

Editor Jankowski, clearly horrified by what he had heard, asked Braun if the MEP was really saying what he had said. When Braun didn't deny it but continued with his assertion, Jankowski interrupted the interview, informing the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown that he had crossed the line into civilized debate.

The conversation was completed on Jan Pospieszalski's podcast. There's no point in summarizing the entire conversation. I'll just repeat what Braun said—directly and indirectly. Paraphrasing, his message went something like this:

"Of course I don't deny the Holocaust! Of course I don't deny that Jews died on a mass scale! I only question that they died in that particular way. I demand only historical truth and reliable research. Of course, I may be wrong, but I'm after the truth! So why do defenders of the gas chamber thesis react so nervously? Perhaps they have something to hide? I invite those who criticize me to debate with me!"

Well, you have to admit, it's a rather clever, eristic masterpiece. The director portrays himself as someone who honestly seeks the truth, who demands respect for the scientific method of historical research. But no, those nasty Jews won't allow it, because exaggerating the Holocaust serves their historical policy, which, as we know, serves as soft power, allowing them to consolidate their influence and advance their interests.

Let us not mention that Braun's openness to discussion was negatively verified by his refusal to talk to Anna Mandrela, a conspiracy hunter popular in right-wing circles, which Braun explained by the fact that the philosopher had criticized him too harshly during the election campaign.

As we can see, Braun's openness to the truth ends the moment anyone dares to seek the truth about him. It seems, therefore, that almost anyone who attempts to examine the director critically ends up as an agent of alien influence.

But let's leave this topic aside and return to Braun's views. The claims about gas chambers – which are, incidentally, a carbon copy of David Irving's claims – are not the first time the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown has said something completely contrary to what is generally accepted as true.

When he entered politics, he became famous for repeating in almost every interview the mantrical assertion that Poland and the European Union were ruled by "mafias, services, and lodges," and that Poland itself was, within the European Union, a "Russian-German condominium under Jewish trusteeship." At the time, however, he was treated as a harmless eccentric like Janusz Korwin-Mikke, with no significant impact on reality, no real political leverage.

Everything changed when Braun, along with the Confederation, won the Polish Parliament in 2019. He gained real momentum, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. In his book "The False Pandemic," he argued that Covid-19 was not a pandemic in the traditional sense, and that the virus's mortality rate was comparable to that of seasonal flu.

As with the gas chambers, he invoked the freedom of scientific discussion in advancing his theses. This is all the more remarkable given that Braun possesses neither the skills of a historian, a physician, nor an expert in public policy (or at least, these skills are not certified by a university degree or recognition in any scientific circles).

At the same time, as a reporter-director, he is very adept at dressing his theses in a journalistic, factual guise. An earlier example of his work in the field of "searching for historical truth" is his statements about the Jedwabne massacre and his demand for the exhumation of the victims in order to investigate "who really committed this murder." The refusal of exhumation by Jewish groups—usually motivated by religion—is evidence for the director's supporters that "these Jews are trying to hide something after all."

The more he is ostracized by the mainstream, the larger his following he gains – as demonstrated by the recent presidential election, where he received approximately 1.2 million votes. For his voters, increasingly distrustful of institutions and mainstream narratives, the proof of his claims is a kind of "evidence from martyrdom."

Braun's vision of reality is this: the Western world is ruled by corrupt and degenerate elites who, in their power struggle, distort scientific research, restrict freedom of speech and the search for truth, and control media that spread false propaganda. These elites are sometimes "Eurofederalists," sometimes "Jews," once "Russian agents," and today more likely agents of "Judeo-Brussels" influence.

This way of thinking, which is not unique to many right-wing movements across the Western world, brings up a rather surprising association. The belief that elites are only interested in power, that those in power are by definition more likely to oppress and want to deprive ordinary citizens of their freedom, and that scientific knowledge is a tool of power, was very characteristic of the countercultural left of the 1960s. Perhaps the most theoretically developed version of this way of thinking was the French philosopher and post-structuralist Michel Foucault.

The 1960s in the West were a completely different world than the one we know today. Postwar affluent societies were slowly approaching the limits of their potential. The idea of hard work and sacrifice to rebuild Europe after the tragedy of World War II no longer satisfied the children of those who had rebuilt it.

Practical materialism was simultaneously accompanied by the cultural hegemony of the so-called conservative lifestyle. Family, work, home. The Church in the West still held its own, overseeing educational and charitable institutions, for example in Belgium.

This association of religion, moral conservatism, and a focus on the material dimension of work became a subject of contestation from the emerging countercultural movement, which in the late 1960s upended the Western imaginary. This movement contested the existing political and cultural order, deeming it oppressive. Particularly in the United States, various conspiracy theories were popular, such as the CIA and FBI's surveillance of the movement, the deaths of figures like John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. as a result of a government conspiracy, and the idea that water fluoridation was a communist plot to weaken Americans. Simply put, elites, both political and corporate, are always plotting against ordinary citizens.

One of the philosophers who enjoyed exceptional popularity among the revolutionary hunweibni was Foucault. In his works (the most famous being "Support and Punish," "A History of Sexuality," and "A History of Madness"), he developed the concept of so-called power-knowledge. According to the philosopher, knowledge (including scientific knowledge) is not an objective description of reality. It is produced and shaped by mechanisms of power. Therefore, whoever holds power decides what constitutes knowledge, truth, and science. Foucault argued that knowledge is a discourse, a story, not a reality objectively proven by reliable scientific criteria.

This is a way of thinking characteristic of postmodernists, who rejected the Enlightenment and modernity's belief that reason and the scientific method could describe the world objectively and independently of subjective human influences. Postmodernists rejected this cognitive optimism. Everything is a story, a myth. "There is nothing outside the text," said another poststructuralist, Jacques Derrida.

Let's return to Foucault. Institutions such as schools, universities, and even hospitals and prisons produce (or perhaps rather transmit) specific types of knowledge for the purposes of social control by power centers. In "The History of Madness," he demonstrated how defining what constitutes mental illness and what does not constitute a powerful tool of power and the exclusion of individuals who oppose it. These beliefs led him to quite radical political theses, such as the rejection of compulsory vaccination and the legalization of ephebophilia (sexual relations with adolescents during puberty).

But what does this have to do with Grzegorz Braun? He certainly wouldn't agree with Foucault that all knowledge is a product of power. Of course, there are significant differences between Braun and the left of the 1960s. Braun, in Pospieszalski's work, even tried to pose as a defender of the Enlightenment-positivist vision of rationality as collecting facts and drawing conclusions from them using scientific methodology.

The similarity between the director's stance and the multitude of anti-establishment movements labeled right-wing lies in the belief that somewhere at the top of the political ladder, elites exist who, through their control over the media, scientific research centers, and the ability to use coercive measures against citizens through state power, attempt to discipline the average Joe to serve their own interests. It is no coincidence that Giorgio Agamben, a staunch disciple of Foucault, has become popular among right-wing critics of pandemic lockdowns, also criticizing lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations.

Those at the top are always after power. Only the characters in the game have changed. Foucault fought against the then-conservative post-war establishment. Braun, in turn, fights against the establishment of AD 2025—whether it be Brussels, the Jews, or God knows who else. Schools and universities today serve to corrupt young people with gender and other "leftist ideologies." Those at the top want to enslave us, using certified experts and scientists to do so. Therefore, they cannot be trusted.

Hence, we should believe anti-establishment "sincere truth-seekers," such as Grzegorz Braun, who often lack formal education in their field. In the 1960s, the countercultural left believed in various conspiracy theories, but today the countercultural right is no less susceptible to these theories. Who knows, perhaps if Foucault were still alive, he would march alongside Braun in the anti-vaccination march?

Grzegorz Braun is no exception, neither in Europe nor in the U.S. The right—commonly known as the alt-right—which rejects the mainstream narrative about the world, has been gaining strength for many years. Theories about Democrats kidnapping children to engage in pedophile orgies (so-called Pizza Gate) and QAnon (the theory that Donald Trump is fighting a gang of Satanists supporting Democrats) have gained considerable popularity in American online spaces.

That the anti-establishment theories popular on what were until recently niche forums are not merely a ridiculous phenomenon was demonstrated by the storming of Capitol Hill by Trump supporters, deeply convinced that the election had been stolen. It then turned out that what had seemed like a funny meme and exoticism could degenerate into regular street violence. Moreover, even stronger evidence that anti-establishment narratives are gaining traction is the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who in one of his books argued that AIDS does not exist and that what was called the disease was a affliction of homosexuals who practiced their morals too casually in gay clubs, is responsible for the Trump administration's health.

Why is it that the growing alt-right is embracing increasingly radical anti-mainstream narratives? I'll point out a few threads that might provide clues to understanding this state of affairs.

First, this stems from the logic of polarization. Politics is no longer perceived as a dispute between different visions of the proper organization of state and society, which compete with each other in the democratic process. Current political discourse is closer to a vision of a struggle between friend and enemy. Nevertheless, Carl Schmitt's concept was intended to consolidate the community within a single state, with the enemy located outside the country's borders. Today, the enemy is within—a representative of the political camp of opponents who are heretics, traitors, someone who must "convert" or perish.

Secondly, the right increasingly attracts to its electoral base those who, for various reasons, feel excluded and defeated in the modern world. This is a rather natural mechanism – those currently in power are often blamed for this sense of exclusion and failure. This type of narrative is further credible in the eyes of the average voter by the fact that people associated with the mainstream often dominate mainstream media. This is certainly the case in the United States.

In Poland, the situation is similar in that for years the media establishment was dominated by groups hostile to the nationalizing right, attempting to push it out of the mainstream of public debate. Of course, some might argue that the situation has changed – in America, there's Fox News, in Poland, Telewizja Republika, and Channel Zero, which, while not directly right-wing, disregards "political correctness" and is much easier to position on the right side of the debate. Finally, we have Platform X, which, since its takeover by Elon Musk, has become a hothouse for right-wing debate, including the one that could easily be described as extreme.

Interestingly, all of the above media are still perceived as grassroots, anti-elite initiatives and, despite their enormous reach (in Poland, TV Republika is already the leader among news channels in terms of viewership), they are still perceived as an expression of rebellion against the world and, more recently, as a bastion of freedom of speech, which progressive liberals would like to restrict.

Third, every conspiracy theory can contain a grain of truth. Distrust of institutions stems from the true ideologization of academic and scientific life. Of course, the fact that academic life in the "leader of the free world" is imperfect doesn't necessarily mean that the world is ruled by greedy Jews, evil elites, and God knows who else. However, these elements, while seeming to confirm Foucault's thesis about the shaping of scientific discourse to serve the ideology of power, certainly don't help the establishment gain the trust of ordinary people. In many Western countries, progressives have dominated the elite, which has led to anti-progressivism being the counterculture today. If conservatives were in power, we would likely be witnessing the opposite movement.

Let's be honest, this growing right-wing counterculture is a challenge to Christianity. Elements of Catholic social teaching—such as Pope Francis's call for caring for our local, immediate surroundings—are mixed with disturbing elements, such as the rejection of the universal liberal order of human rights (which is, after all, a product of Christian universalism) in favor of the logic of force and hardline interests.

The Christianity of Braun or the Protestant millenarian supporters of Donald Trump, more than Catholic orthodoxy, resembles ancient and medieval sects like the Cathars, who actively contest the current order, seeing themselves as "Prometheuses" carrying the fire stolen from the current elites.

However, the political theology of Christianity is not counterculture in the common sense of the word. According to the classical interpretation of Christians' relationship to political power—present, for example, in the letters of St. Paul and St. Peter—Christians have no fundamental problem with the world being ruled by Jews, pagans, or anyone else. According to the apostles' teaching, authority should maintain the basic order of justice and justice, and Christians owe it obedience. The limiting point of obedience is fidelity to God, just as ancient Christians disobeyed the emperor only when he forced them into idolatry.

The Christian counterrevolution lies elsewhere. The oft-repeated claim that "Christians are always in opposition to the world," taken literally, is false. According to the letters of St. John the Apostle, to be in opposition to the world means to declare war on the lusts inherent in man, upon which social structures are often built. This is true counterrevolution—against the lust for power, sex, and money.

However, the Church often lacks authority for the alt-right that appeals to it. Among its representatives, views of the Church being infiltrated by Freemasons and—surprise!—Jews persist, so the Church hierarchy cannot be entirely trusted. It is no coincidence that Braun is a regular attendee of Holy Masses celebrated by the Society of St. Pius X—an organization that rejects the Second Vatican Council and disobeys the Pope. One thing can be stated on this point: Braun's denial of the institution's authority cannot be denied a certain degree of consistency.

What's next for Grzegorz Braun? What's next for the radical anti-establishment right in the West? Time will tell. To echo the words probably spoken by British politician Joseph Chamberlain in 1898 – may we not live in interesting times.