“The United States and America are not the same thing. The United States is a government, an administration. America is an idea — and that idea is still there, even when the government is not.” — Konstanty Gebert

What is the best thing about America? At least when viewed from Warsaw. For Konstanty Gebert — Polish-Jewish journalist, Solidarity activist, co-founder of Gazeta Wyborcza, and one of his country’s most celebrated public intellectuals — the answer is the interlibrary loan system. The ability to order any book from any library in the United States and have it delivered to your local branch within days, for free. To Gebert, it represents something irreducibly American: access to knowledge as a public good. What the internet once was. What America once represented to freedom-loving Poles like Gebert.

And the worst? Yalta. Gebert’s narrative is damning. In February 1945, FDR and Churchill caved into Stalin’s demands and agreed to Soviet colonisation of Eastern Europe in exchange for Russia’s entry into the Pacific War. Poland was once again bartered by the great powers. “We were sold,” Gebert describes a perfidy that resulted in a forty-year Soviet occupation of Poland.

Between the interlibrary loan and Yalta lies a more complex Polish-American history: Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points enabling an independent Poland; Herbert Hoover feeding a starving Europe after WW1; Reagan’s support for Solidarity. Now, however, Konstanty Gebert warns, Trump’s America isn’t just failing Poland, but all of Europe in its disdain for freedom, especially in Ukraine. That’s the view from Warsaw. And it’s closer to Yalta than the interlibrary loan system.

Five Takeaways

• The Interlibrary Loan System. The peak of American civilisation: order any book from any library in the country, delivered to your branch for free within days. Access to knowledge as a public good. The most civilised thing any country has ever done. He is not entirely joking.

• The United States and America Are Not the Same. The United States is a government that can fail. America is an idea that persists. Poland’s relationship is with America. That survived Yalta. That survived Trump’s first term. He is less sure about the second.

• Wilson, Hoover, Yalta, Reagan. Wilson’s 14 Points gave Poland its independence. Hoover fed Europe. Yalta sold Poland to Stalin. Reagan rehabilitated America by supporting Solidarity. Trump damages it again. The cycle is long but the Polish memory is longer.

• Solidarity and America. America meant: someone in the world cares about us. We are not alone. Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine — and of the principle that democracies defend each other — tears at that core.

• Gaza, Genocide, and the Precision of Language. As a Polish Jew and genocide scholar: what is happening in Gaza is horrifying and criminal. But the legal definition of genocide requires systematic intent to destroy a people as such. Diluting the word weakens it. The Nazis’ General Plan Ost would have turned to Slavs next. That is the context in which the word was forged.

About the Guest

Konstanty Gebert (also known as Dawid Warszawski) is a journalist, Solidarity activist, co-founder of Gazeta Wyborcza, and Associate Fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in Warsaw.

References

Wilson Square, Warsaw — named for Woodrow Wilson, whose 14 Points included Polish independence
The Yalta Conference, 1945
Srebrenica — the legal touchstone for genocide in international law

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:30 Warsaw, June 21, 2026
00:01:15 The interlibrary loan: peak of American civilisation
00:02:40 The United States and America are not the same
00:04:10 Wilson Square
00:07:00 Yalta: we were sold
00:09:00 Reagan and Solidarity
00:20:00 Ukraine and the democratic idea
00:40:00 Israel, Gaza, and genocide
00:42:00 Srebrenica as the legal definition
00:45:00 General Plan Ost and why precision matters