Poland's national-conservative ruling party PiS has been announcing for years that it wants to bring the foreign-owned Polish media into Polish hands.
For a party that insults its opponents as “Poles of the poorer kind” and traitors to the country, it is obvious what it means by that.
However, for a long time the PiS found it difficult to put these words into practice, also because the legal hurdles are high.
But the deeper the government camp maneuvers itself into the crisis through internal intrigues and the more likely it will not be able to repeat the electoral successes of the past six years, the more determined it seems to be to turn off critical media.
After a failed attempt at the beginning of the year to remove the economic basis for the private media with a tax law, the PiS now apparently wants to get at least the largest private news broadcaster out of the way by changing the terms of the license.
The astonishing thing is that the government in Warsaw is entering an open conflict with the United States with its eyesight against the American owners.
So far, the following has been cross-party: good relations with Washington are the most important guarantee for Poland's security. But the PiS puts party reasoning above reason of state. That lets you see deeply.