Images hold immense power. Beads of sweat on the forehead, a slightly unshaven, fatigued face of Vice President Richard Nixon—recovering from illness—cost him the televised debate against John F. Kennedy in 1960 and, consequently, the presidential election. What’s more, when he ran again in 1968, he refused to participate in debates—and won.
I wonder what kind of impact the images we occasionally see on Telewizja Republika could have (and already have) if they appeared on channels where they are conveniently absent (coincidence, right?)—such as TVN or that one public broadcaster currently being dismantled.
It’s oddly convenient that Republika is the one airing footage of arrests—whether it’s Zbigniew Ziobro or, more recently, Dariusz Matecki. It was Republika reporting from outside the prisons where former ministers and opposition MPs Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik were held, as well as where Father Olszewski was imprisoned and tortured.
This power of imagery, the strength of television reporting, leaves a huge impression. But for it to truly resonate (forgive me for stating the obvious), it has to reach the audience. And yet, it doesn’t—because it’s being blocked. After all, if a parliamentary committee happens to be inconvenient for those in power, the transmission can simply be cut, right? Just like they previously shut down public television broadcasts.
Now the question is: will the power of television images break out of the Polish right-wing bubble? There’s a chance, as Americans have started paying more attention to Polish affairs. The interview with MP Matecki and footage of his arrest are already making waves on certain English-language accounts on X.
Will these striking images resonate with the public in Poland and the West? Over there, they’ll likely end up in their own ideological “bubbles,” just like team names are placed in large glass jars for a tournament draw. But maybe, just maybe, someone will pull out something from outside their own bubble—something from a different jar. And perhaps this will shift the perception of what’s happening in Poland today, where we are no longer dealing with a democracy in the true sense, but rather, in the most literal way, a patho-democratura—a dictatorship in disguise.