It felt like an appeal straight out of the Cold War.
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski stepped to the podium and urged fellow Polish Americans to consider the future of their ancestral homeland when they vote in November.
“If Ukraine falls, Poland is next, and if that's the case, then we have trouble with NATO," said Pashinski (D-Wilkes-Barre). "So, this could be a cataclysmic tragedy."
Pashinski's words might sound like a Soviet-era warning, but they reference the contemporary threat from Vladimir Putin's Russia.
It's a threat Pashinski and several other prominent Polish Americans said they fear will become a reality if Republican former President Donald Trump wins next month's presidential election and pulls support from Ukraine as it fights off Russia's two-year-old invasion.
Pashinski, together with former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski and actress Christine Baranski, among others, came to Genetti's in Wilkes-Barre to make their case for Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris — and against Trump and Putin.
"We've been here before … Putin has made very clear that he wants his empire back, that the ‘greatest disaster’ was the dissolution of the Soviet empire,” said Baranski, known for her work on stage, screen and TV.
Wednesday's rally in Wilkes-Barre was emotional as well as strategic: Pashinski, Malinowski and Baranski were appealing to ancestral pride in one of the nation's most Polish counties.
Luzerne County long was recognized as the only U.S. county with a plurality of residents claiming Polish descent. While 2023 U.S. Census estimates suggest people claiming Irish heritage have gained a slight edge in the county (15.4% to 15.2%), Polish heritage still runs deep here and in Pennsylvania as a whole.
Harris courts Polish Americans
It's a theme Harris took up last month during her televised debate with Trump in Philadelphia, when she chided the former president for his cordiality with Putin and suggested that if Trump were still in office Russia would be in control of Ukraine and eyeing the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.
"And why don't you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch,” Harris said.
As the Associated Press reported, the Harris campaign has been seeking to hammer home that message with Polish Americans who are a significant presence in the "blue wall" states of Michigan (784,000), Pennsylvania (758,000) and Wisconsin (481,000).
Given that President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes in 2020, there is logic to courting a group as large as the state's Polish American population.
But will it work?
A Politico report report this week included interviews with Polish Americans in Luzerne County, pointing out that many of them are generations removed from the homeland and their immigrant ancestors — and that they have shown strong support for Trump, who carried the county in 2016 and 2020.
The longtime blue county formally flipped to red in late September.
'How could anybody hang out with Vladimir?'
For Pashinski, who has represented the 121st House District since 2007, Trump's support for the Russian president is a non-starter.
“How could anybody hang out with Vladimir [Putin],” he asked, mocking Trump for sending COVID-19 testing kits to the Russian leader. Trump secretly sent Putin testing kits during the pandemic shortage, according to NPR.
Malinowski, who was born in Poland, represented New Jersey's 7th District from 2019 to 2023. This election hits home for him in a way others haven't.
“I'm a proud Democrat … [but] I haven't had, like special Polish American reason to vote for Democratic presidents until today,” he said.
"There's never been (such) a stark difference on these issues of who will stand up for freedom, who will stand up for our allies, who will stand up to dictators, for our values, for their freedom and for ours,” Malinowski said.
Malinowski called on the audience to remember the actions of Poles who resisted Nazi atrocities during World War II — including his mother, who hid Jewish friends and neighbors during the Holocaust.
“And I think a lot of us who are Polish or who are from Eastern Europe, we were taught that ethos,” Malinowski said. “That you should be humble, you shouldn't be too fancy. You shouldn't ask for too much credit."
"But when you see something evil, when you see freedom threatened, you stand up and fight, even when the cost is very high," he added. "And think about where in the world right now, where do we see that ethos? More than anywhere, it's in Ukraine.”
'We lived through Soviet aggression'
Baranski, a native of Buffalo, New York — a blue collar industrial city which, like Luzerne County, has a large Polish American community — said Poland’s safety is intrinsically tied to Ukraine’s fate.
“We lived through the '80s and '90s. We lived through the Soviet bloc. We lived through Soviet aggression and invasions of Czechoslovakia, we lived through Solidarność' and the Poles fighting to free themselves from Russian oppression," she said, referencing the Polish "Solidarity" movement of the 1980s.
Baranski, who earlier in the day accompanied Pashinski as he canvassed for votes, spoke of Harris being the daughter of a working single mother.
“When I listen to Kamala Harris, I hear the voice of someone who truly knows and empathizes with the middle-class experience,” Baranski said.
In less than three weeks, voters in Luzerne County and around the country will demonstrate whether they agree.
