Jan-Werner Müller distinguishes populism from other political movements that utilize the underprivileged by arguing that populism is ultimately exclusionary; “only some of the people are really the people,” (Müller, 20). Instead of defining the people that are citizens in a given state, this tends to exhibit itself in describing who is not a member of the state. In a lot of Western countries, immigrants are a convenient scapegoat. In Poland, however, LGBT people have become the new ostracized group. Jarosław Kaczyński uses populist rhetoric against the LGBT community in order to more solidly define who is and is not a citizen of Poland. In a quote from the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) and party leader Jarosław Kaczyński, “We need to fight. We need to defend the Polish family. We need to defend it furiously because it is a threat to civilization…” Here Kaczyński states that LGBT people are enemy number one of not just Polish citizens, but the entirety of civilization. This speech was given in response to the deputy president of Warsaw, Paweł Rabiej, backing adoption rights for same-sex couples. Kaczyński frames this as an attack on society and as a fight to protect children. Many people give into this rhetoric, a woman running for a seat on the PiS party said, “I think that Poland will be a region free of LGBT.” Any attempt made to introduce legislation that would afford LGBT persons any protections is immediately subjected to borderline violent rhetoric.
     A good example of this is Paweł Adamowicz, who was the mayor of Gdańsk. He was a member of one of the opposition parties, the Civic Platform, which supported a lot of left-wing policies, including the expansion of protections for LGBT individuals. He was assassinated at a rally in January by a man who claimed political violence was used against him by the Civic Platform when the Civic Platform held executive office. While there has been no clear consensus on whether this was a political attack, the violent rhetoric of the ruling party may have played a part in the assassination. PiS frequently subjected Adamowicz to accusations of being someone who was “immoral” and would “bring terrorists into Poland.” Adamowicz was elected on a platform of tolerance for immigrants and LGBT people, seeking to show the world, “the Poland of Mr. Kaczyński was not the only Poland.”
     Instead of taking these words to heart, Kaczyński has stepped up the homophobic rhetoric in preparation for the upcoming elections. Do Rzechy, a local newspaper, published an article warning its readers about LGBT dictatorship. Here PiS is inciting populist sentiment against a particular group of people, implying that if they re-elect Kaczyński, he will be able to prevent LGBT people from taking over.
     Bloomberg reporters, Strzelecki and Bartyzel, theorize that homophobic rhetoric in particular serves the dual purpose of giving the people a public enemy and drawing the Church closer to the state. This serves to give the people a solid ideology to understand. Populists holds a strictly anti-pluralist stance, which is made easier with the invocation of religion. Using religious morals is an easy way of distinguishing the true and false populace, which is what PiS does with the church and it’s stance on homosexuality. Since homosexuality does not align with the Church, it does not align with the government.