Michael O'Shea
As seen in:
Newsweek,
Washington Examiner,
LifeSiteNews.com,
The National Interest,
The Federalist,
The American Conservative,
National Catholic Register,
The American Spectator,
Israel Hayom,
JNS
and
Covers:
Central & Eastern Europe, U.S. Foreign Policy, Visegrád Group, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Ireland, Iceland, Catholicism, European Affairs, European Politics, Immigration
American-Polish Writer | Fmr Fellow @InstituteDanube | Catholic | Postliberal
danubeinstitute.hu/en/authors/michael-o-shea
Articles by Michael O'Shea
‘Africa Days’ in Eastern Poland The Great Replacement proceeds unimpeded.
Across much of Central and Eastern Europe, locals exhibit a certain superiority toward their Western European neighbors in terms of immigration. It won’t happen here, it can’t happen here, goes the conventional wisdom. In Poland, this mindset increasingly conflicts with an uncomfortable reality: against the will of most Poles, Poland is becoming an immigration country.
My Encounters With the SPLC When a new father becomes collateral damage in the liberal order’s war on dissent
I was still learning how to be a father when the Southern Poverty Law Center came after me. On a winter night during my corporate paternity leave in 2023, my Twitter started blowing up. A couple inconsequential kids were gloating. I had a sense of what it was. Someone from the SPLC had been snooping around my LinkedIn that week.
Pope Leo, Lampedusa, and The Camp of the Saints
On his native country’s 250th anniversary, Pope Leo XIV will visit Lampedusa, an Italian sovereign territory off the North African coast that has long been a destination for migrants seeking to enter Europe. In 2013, Pope Francis made it his first papal destination outside Rome. Publication of Pope Leo’s official calendar recalled Vice President JD Vance’s personal invitation to the United States for the anniversary festivities, an invitation the pope seems to have declined.
Tensions grow in Iceland as priest upholds Church’s moral teaching
Tensions grow in Iceland as priest upholds Church’s moral teaching Citing “conversion therapy,” authorities consider launching a criminal investigation into remarks by Fr. Jakob Rolland, chancellor of the Catholic Church in Iceland. The Cathedral of Christ the King in Reykjavík, Iceland. (Images: Jon Gretarsson and Wikipedia) A flashpoint of Catholic faith and life in the Western liberal democracies is occurring in an unusual place: Iceland.
“This Cursed Phenomenon We’re Experiencing”
Bothelford’s Gone, Edward McLaren, The Maldon Press, 2026 One of the most damning aspects of the UK grooming-gang scandal is the fact it was known so long ago, yet the road to justice remains arduous. For this reviewer, an American with no insider knowledge, one who studies other European countries more closely than the UK, the name ‘Rotherham’ has been synonymous with subcontinental Muslim grooming gangs for well over a decade.
Towards the ‘Triumph of Free Trade’ – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
French author Michel Houellebecq has a well-earned reputation for prophecy. His 2001 novel Platform seemingly imagines the 2002 Islamic terrorist bombings in Bali. His 2015 novel Submission, published on the date of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, foretells numerous since-realized developments related to Islam, demographic change, and politics in late-stage liberal France.
The Extinction of Icelanders – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Despite overwhelming evidence, the replacement of European societies remains — frustratingly — a contested concept. Across the continent, cities and towns are unrecognizable. Novel social ills confront Europeans who remember better days. Corporate media regularly broadcast projections of minority-native populations later this century. Despite this incontrovertible evidence, institutional figures still insist replacement is a “far-right” conspiracy theory.
Yes, Even Iceland Has an Immigration Problem
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Questions of population replacement and societal extinction assume a certain urgency when a people can trace its lineage directly to the Vikings, easily read the Norse sagas, and count a population smaller than Wichita, Kansas. This is precisely the scenario in Iceland, where mass migration has reached crisis proportions. Yes, even Iceland. It is the same tiresome pattern that has proliferated across Europe.
In Central Europe, EU Skeptics Retake Center Stage
Foreign Affairs In Central Europe, EU Skeptics Retake Center Stage The Visegrád Group is once again a formidable regional bloc. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The peoples of Central Europe have a habit of being indigestible to great continental empires. By the Gorbachev years, the Soviet Union had become exhausted by its restive European satellites, a feeling Habsburg rulers had known decades earlier—and that’s just the twentieth century.
Hey, Foreign Office, leave Slovakia alone
The UK’s activist foreign policy has been unmasked in Slovakia Late last month, the Slovakian parliament passed a constitutional amendment that enshrines recognition of only two sexes, strengthens parental rights in schools, bans surrogacy, and confirms the primacy of Slovakian law over competing EU dictates.
Ireland Is a Democratic Late Starter – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
In his 2010 book The New Vichy Syndrome, Theodore Dalrymple presented an idea that had not yet spread widely beyond Britain and Ireland. “Perhaps it is Ireland that offers the most startling example of secularization in Europe because it was a late starter,” wrote the conservative physician and social critic.
It’s Past High Noon for Poland’s Liberals – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
All Poles recognize the likeness of Gary Cooper from the 1952 film High Noon. The Polish Cooper holds an election ballot over a backdrop of the Solidarity trade union’s iconic red letters. Below his feet appear the words “High Noon 4 June 1989.” The political poster appeared all over Poland that year, ahead of the first partially free elections of the communist Polish People’s Republic, and it became one of the most enduring symbols of the fall of communism in Europe.
Ireland Against the Irish
Foreign Affairs Ireland Against the Irish Untrammeled liberalism is staging a horror show on the Emerald Isle. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Britain’s liberal excesses have garnered the spotlight recently, as both President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have criticized the country’s approach to thoughtcrime, leaving Prime Minister Keir Starmer flummoxed.
Blonde Women and Money from the Wall
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The second Trump administration’s “resistance” is coalescing around the topic of immigration, but that hasn’t stopped the president from hammering the issue. He even brought his concerns about mass migration to Europe during a visit this weekend to Scotland. “On immigration, you better get your act together,” he told reporters, criticizing European leaders.
What Next for Poland After Nawrocki Victory? » The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics
It has been a grueling campaign to achieve essentially the status quo. Conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, informally affiliated with the Law and Justice (PiS) party that led governments from 2015 to 2023, won a dramatic victory in Poland’s presidential contest on Sunday. He edged liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski by a margin of 50.89 percent to 49.11 percent.
Polish Voters Again Reject Liberal 'Laboratory' Candidate Original
Poland ensured sovereigntist forces went one-for-two in this spring’s transformative presidential elections in Central and Eastern Europe on June 1. Two weeks after the European liberal establishment finalized its power-grab in Romania, conservative historian Karol Nawrocki secured a razor-thin victory over liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. In fact, Nawrocki snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Exit polls released at poll-closing time suggested a narrow victory for Trzaskowski.
Eurocrats Watch Poland With Bated Breath
Foreign Affairs Eurocrats Watch Poland With Bated Breath U.S. officials are also closely monitoring the upcoming presidential contest. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The message to Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is clear: America is watching. As Poland’s presidential election approaches—the first round will occur Sunday, the same day as nearby Romania’s second round—the significance is not lost on American public figures, including President Donald Trump.
Is Poland the Next Victim of Mass Migration? – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Visitors to Western Europe have grown accustomed to young male migrants hawking selfie sticks, demanding a few euros, or — most often — simply loitering. Cities behind the former Iron Curtain have largely avoided this transformation. In Warsaw and other Polish cities, slowly but perceptibly, it is occurring in real time.
Time to Ditch the Media and NGO’s Freedom and Democracy Rankings
The first months of the new Trump Administration have laid bare the web of government technocrats and NGO activists and their public funding. It has never been easier to disregard the narratives these actors have concocted. Hungarians, then, largely rolled their eyes when Transparency International released its 2024 “Corruption Perceptions Index” earlier this year, and they found themselves tied with Burkina Faso, South Africa, and communist Cuba in the 82nd spot.
Poland Continues to Arrest Political Opponents
During his speech at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance summarized a European totalitarian impulse that has been festering for years but has only recently become prominent in American political discourse. The United Kingdom now arrests citizens for speech and even silent prayer.
The Lies Are No Longer Uttered with Impunity: Vance’s Speech and Poland’s Crucial Election
It is springtime in the West. This moment recalls the words of Poland’s Cold War-era philosopher Leszek Kołakowski, who asserted, “Obvious lies uttered aloud with impunity are excellent proofs of the health of the system.” The lies are no longer uttered with impunity, and that’s an indication the liberal order is crumbling. Vance’s Hard Truths Resonate Vice President JD Vance magnified this new reality in his veritable Zeitenwende speech in Munich last week.
Are the Protests in Slovakia Due to NGO and USAID Interference?
Newly minted Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been saying all the right things. His immediate maneuvers on DEI and deportations have set a promising tone. However, his department warrants more tempered optimism than most. For one, his 99-0 Senate confirmation indicates U.S. foreign policy might not have major shakeups in store. More importantly, Rubio’s hawkish track record suggests regime-change adventurism is firmly on the table.
Lessons for Trump from Orbán, Hungary’s ‘Comeback’ Prime Minister
“Orbán should have been born in a big country like Germany,” a Hungarian acquaintance once told me, in typical East European fashion. “His genius is wasted in Hungary.” An optimistic observer might retort that everyone has an opinion on Hungary by now — remarkable for a small, landlocked country of under 10 million. It was no surprise, then, to see Prime Minister Viktor Orbán grab headlines with his most recent round of state visits.
Gains for Irish Conservatives May Be Too Little, Too Late
Euro Watch Rejection of incumbent parties has been a global theme in a year in which more voters than ever have cast ballots. It has been a talking point of Democrats seeking to make sense of their failures in last month’s elections. According to Harvard’s Steven Levitsky, incumbents have suffered losses in 40 of 54 Western democracies since 2020. Over 80 percent of incumbent parties have lost parliamentary seats or vote share this year.
Trump’s Victory Couldn’t Come Soon Enough for the Polish Right
Foreign Affairs Trump’s Victory Couldn’t Come Soon Enough for the Polish Right The American election provides a morale boost for Poland’s badly outgunned conservatives. In Ashes and Diamonds, Jerzy Andrzejewski’s 1948 novel of postwar power-jockeying in Poland, the aristocratic, anti-communist Col. Staniewicz asserts, “In today’s set-up we Poles are divided into two categories: those who have betrayed the freedom of Poland and those who do not wish to do so.
A Hackneyed Narrative
Something about the Central and Eastern Europe region captures imaginations. Bookstores in the Anglosphere carry a disproportionate number of works on the topic, which is precisely why this reviewer stumbled upon Jacob Mikanowski’s Goodbye, Eastern Europe at a nearby chain store. With its handsome binding and cover design, and its plaudits from the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, Mikanowski’s book is a natural fit in such retailers.
An Antidote to Europe’s Summertime Blues
Foreign Affairs An Antidote to Europe’s Summertime Blues Complaints about Central Europe’s “democratic backsliding” don’t hold up under scrutiny. Boarding my U.S.-bound plane once in Dublin, a stewardess cheerfully reminded the line of long faces that it’s never too early to plan next year’s vacation. The sentiment resonated more than the charitable stewardess knew. A cubicle beckoned.
Trump and the GOP Sidestep Government Staffing at Their Own Peril – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
The fortunes of Mexico and Donald J. Trump are inextricably linked. When I visited Mexico City in the summer of 2017, locals seemed to have warmed to that reality. Several told a yarn about investing in 11-foot ladders to scale Trump’s 10-foot wall, a joke that always landed if told with levity and confidence.
Poland Tests the Migration Boiling-Frog Syndrome
The phenomenon of mass-migration is arguably older and more firmly entrenched in France than anywhere else in Europe. Asked in 1994 whether some recent tightening of asylum and family-reunification statutes might prove effective, Jean Raspail, author of the notorious, prescient novel The Camp of the Saints, replied, “No. It is impossible to do anything. It’s too late.
Europe Clamps Down
Critical events can fall victim to a dramatic news cycle. This is especially true of creeping “liberal-democratic” authoritarianism that the mainstream media willfully ignore when it suits their aims. It applied in 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine immediately overshadowed the Canadian government’s freezing of bank accounts of trucker-protesters and relegated the story to the more distant regions of public discourse.
Germans Say They’re Fed Up, Nazi Accusations Be Damned
In her political ads in the leadup to last week’s EU parliamentary elections, European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen bizarrely walks and jogs through a forest in her native Germany as she explains why she’s running. That she would retreat to the woods to make her electoral pitch is fitting for the ruling class she represents.
Robert Fico, Consummate Survivor
Upon crossing the Danube by car into Bratislava’s central business district, one of the most conspicuous sights is political graffiti adorning a line of construction barrier walls. The messages are unambiguous. Fico wants Russia here. Fico = dark times. Death to the Russian Nazis. Over a week after Prime Minister Robert Fico suffered four gunshot wounds in an assassination attempt, the graffiti remains. For Slovakians, the neighboring war is an omnipresent burden.
Anti-Establishment Pressure Builds as EU Elections Loom
Politics Anti-Establishment Pressure Builds as EU Elections Loom Will 2024 see a repetition of the 2016 Brexit-Trump dual victory? For the first time in two decades, the EU’s parliamentary elections will coincide with America’s presidential election. The West’s great democracies could, theoretically, deliver a systemic shock reminiscent of the Brexit-Trump dual victory in 2016. This idea warrants some context.
Stung by Defeat, Irish Elites Double Down
Foreign Affairs Stung by Defeat, Irish Elites Double Down Like their counterparts in America, Ireland’s grandees are failing to come to terms with the revolt of the public. Dublin Castle was remarkably quiet on March 9, as the results of Ireland’s latest highly publicized referendum campaign became clear. The courtyard stage was empty, and only a smattering of “opposition” campaigners showed themselves.
Bury the Lie That Migrants Aren’t Coming
We aren’t sending our best, an American might conclude after surveying the current state of U.S. diplomacy. Though government officials abroad tend to inspire less scrutiny than those in Washington, it is a development that has become more apparent under the Biden administration. Central Europe is a persistent flashpoint of this nakedly ideological foreign policy.
Why Isn’t Poland Smiling? Just Ask the Protesting Farmers Attacked by Police Last Week.
When Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition conducted its election campaign last year, it promoted the slogan of “Smiling Poland,” with corresponding brand accents of smiles and hearts. It implied that Poland had receded into darkness under the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which governed the country from 2015 to 2023.
Polish Conservatives Under Siege
Foreign Affairs Polish Conservatives Under Siege PiS is having difficulty navigating its new parliamentary isolation as the cultural revolution comes to Poland. Poland is not a country in which left-liberal policies should go unchallenged. Among Europe’s large nations, it is arguably the most religious and conservative. A defiant independence has long emanated from Warsaw. Politicians from both American parties have sought favor there.
Hungary’s Lesson for Poland
Recent scenes in Poland are supposed to be the stuff of history. After all, it’s no longer the awkward transition years of the 1990s or early 2000s. Walking around Polish cities, even small ones, an observer can’t miss the economic dynamism. Poland feels like a rich country now. Surely there shouldn’t be police raids on the public television headquarters and the presidential residence, or political prisoners and show trials.
El Salvador: A Lesson in Geopolitical Leverage
El Salvador is blessed with considerable natural resources. Long burdened with civil war, gang violence, and poverty, the country has struggled to utilize them. Happily, that might be changing as President Nayib Bukele begins a second term. His emphatic destruction of the Salvadoran gang ecosystem resulted in an equally emphatic election victory. When all the ballots are counted, Bukele will claim over 80 per cent of the vote total.
Can a Catholic Support “Absolute Savagery”?
As 2024 dawns, Rome and Washington promise an abundance of material at the intersection of faith and politics. Feeling overwhelmed at this prospect, the interested Catholic observer might look instead to Central America, where El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is seeking reelection early next month. It will be less a gauge of the Salvadoran electorate than a statement to the world. Bukele will win.
Gangster Tactics in Liberal Poland Recall a Bygone Era
“The eurocrats are out for blood,” a Brussels-based colleague warned before Poland’s October parliamentary elections. That was hardly shocking news, as Poland’s then-governing national-populist Law & Justice (PiS) party inspired inexhaustible hatred from the E.U. establishment. Yet few predicted the swiftness and severity of revenge.
Poland’s Liberal-Democracy Has Adopted Martial Law
The new government of Poland ran an election campaign touting the “rule of law” and antidotes to “democratic backsliding.” It was enough to win — or, at least, not to lose. As no major parliamentary ally was willing to help top finisher Law & Justice (PiS) secure a third term, three opposition party coalitions cobbled together a government and took office this month.
Polish Elections Constitute a Setback to European Conservatives
On 15 October, Poland became the second—after Spain—large European country to hold parliamentary elections this year. As in the Spanish case, conservatives found reason for disappointment. The results certainly spelled the end of the eight-year rule of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and eliminated, for the moment, Hungary’s key European alliance. Unlike in Spain, polls proved largely accurate.
It’s Not Your Grandparents’ Ireland
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program Login Foreign Affairs It’s Not Your Grandparents’ Ireland While Ireland’s political class is happy to sell this vision of the country to American tourists—including the occasional president—in practice, it has methodically disassembled that Ireland. When President Biden visited Ireland in April, he enjoyed the Emerald Isle’s timeless delights.
Hungary’s Alternative to the ‘Unwavering Solidarity’ Crowd
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, Western leaders have been saying the right things—in a sense. U.S. president Joe Biden described the United States’ “rock-solid and unwavering support” to Israel. “You are not alone,” he asserted on an October 18 trip to the country, soon after a similar trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Miklós Horthy: Paradox and Political Football
On several occasions during my time living and researching in Budapest, I had the pleasure of visiting the superb World War I exhibit called A New World Was Born – 1914-1922. It matched in quality, if not scope, Kansas City’s National World War I Museum and Memorial. Intended as a temporary exhibit, it remained open by popular demand for several years. One recurring theme was that of a rider on horseback. Visitors to the exhibit first encountered life-sized riders in full parade dress, ca.
Poland Faces Culture Clash in Upcoming Elections
If one were to imagine a Mount Rushmore of European Union (EU) bureaucrats, it would certainly feature the likeness of former European Council President Donald Tusk. Consequently, seeing Tusk’s face emblazoned across international media this week has been unsurprising. On October 1, he presided over a large pro-abortion rally calculated to kick off two weeks of adulatory media coverage before Poland’s October 15 parliamentary elections. The campaign represents a homecoming of sorts.
Poland’s Opposition Readies Kangaroo Courts
Circumstances are dire in Poland under the rule of the conservative Law & Justice (PiS) party, if you’re to believe recent media coverage.
Migration Conference Marks Key Moment in V4 Alliance
Reading Time: 2 minutes Hungary – On September 28, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) hosted, at its Budapest campus, a panel discussion on the pressing subject of irregular migration to Europe. “The Decade of Movement: Challenges and Stakes of Irregular Mass Migration in Europe” was a product of the Wacław Felczak Institute of Polish-Hungarian Cooperation and the Budapest-based Migration Research Institute (MRI) and featured migration-focused scholars from several European countries.
Budapest Migration Conference Offers Dialogue at Critical Policy Moment
On September 28, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) hosted an international panel discussion on the pressing subject of irregular migration to Europe. The event titled The Decade of Movement: Challenges and Stakes of Irregular Mass Migration in Europe was a collaborative effort by the Wacław Felczak Institute of Polish-Hungarian Cooperation and the Budapest-based Migration Research Institute (MRI). It showcased migration-focused scholars from across Europe.
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