The anti-Islam, euroskeptic radical Geert Wilders is projected to be the shock winner of the Dutch election.
In a dramatic result that will stun European politics, his Freedom Party (PVV) is set to win around 35 of the 150 seats in parliament — more than double the number it secured in the 2021 election, according to exit polls.
Frans Timmermans’ Labour-Green alliance is forecast to take second place, winning 25 seats — a big jump from its current 17. Dilan Yeşilgöz, outgoing premier Mark Rutte’s successor as head of the center-right VVD, suffered heavy losses and is on course to take 24 seats, 10 fewer than before, according to the updated exit poll by Ipsos for national broadcaster NOS.
A win for Wilders will put the Netherlands on track — potentially — for a dramatic shift in direction, after Rutte’s four consecutive centrist governments. The question now, though, is whether any other parties are willing to join Wilders to form a coalition. Despite emerging as the largest party, he will lack an overall majority in parliament.
What the fuck is happening to the world?
Far right extremists claim easy solutions to complex problems. With housing etc pricea going through the roof it’s easy to demonize foreigners etc.
Look what happened in Germany with hyper inflation.
If you look at the projections for muslims living throughout Europe over the next 30 years with current levels of immigration you can see there will be a Muslim majority in many parts of Europe. I’m not saying that’s a problem necessarily but it will be a big cultural shift if that takes place. There is some concern that many muslims have followed their holy doctrine in moving towards sharia law. I’m not trying to be islamaphopic it’s just quite difficult to discern between the muslims who want to live in peace and live a western lifestyle and those who want to live under sharia law and those who want to live under some hybrid system and what that might look like. These are the outcomes whether you want to accept it or not. Yes it’s complex and difficult.
This is the first generation with worse prospects than the previous one. Wealth inequality is growing, and robber barons are back. Climate change is making any prospects even worse.
Combine that with a communication revolution (social media, to be exact) which allows anyone to pretty much target anyone else with any message they feel like, means disinformation pushing narratives is everywhere. And not to forget, there people in charge of these platforms are among the aforementioned robber barons.
It’s easy to offer simple solutions to these problems and push disinformation to people who don’t have the knowledge, time or energy to debunk everything and think deeply about things, since they’re busy slaving away to put food on their tables, struggling to build a future, and looking for solutions. And simple answers give people a sense of control or explanation over their difficult situation.
It’s why I have completely removed myself from every social media platform there is, except this one and I’m only on here intermittently.
True, but the generation that tends to vote far right is the boomer generation - it’s the generation that failed to pass on rising prosperity and gave us the climate crisis.
If you look at elections in europe, it’s pretty consistently the 35-45 year old demographic that votes right the most. Every age group votes right and it’s not like it’s only boomers, with the exception of young voters <30 (and women) which do vote significantly more left
E. G. Netherlands https://www.statista.com/chart/8178/pvv-largest-party-but-not-among-youth/
Do we know why? For Americans, I can see the nihilism of the grunge era affecting the latter part of that group, and possibly having a lasting effect towards political compass.
But I can’t think of a reason of the top of my head for European millennials driving so deep into that side of politics.
I think it’s for many different reasons, but a bit the same as everywhere. Some are protest votes due to a distrust in government in general, then 35-45 is the age most get kids and in contrast to their parents generation they live in apartments, not single family homes, as houses aren’t affordable. Then there’s the general widening of the wealth gap and the populists pretending they have a solution and blaming it on immigration (while themselves being a big reason for the problem in the first place…), while left parties often get tricked into reacting to right rhetoric, letting the right dictate the discussion. Old people are less affected by the wealth gap, young people don’t have kids so they don’t notice yet. And in it’s also a question of mobilizing ones base, the right parties get a ton of money for ads and so on, they are good at stirring up fears of existential threats(which is ironic given the real existential threat of climate change), while a lot of people are disillusioned, so middle aged left voters are less likely to actually go vote whereas more right voters do. Of course <30 voters worry more about climate change and are more motivated to go vote, since they’ll be the most affected by its effects.
I’m sure there’s many more reasons but these are the first ones I can think of off the top of my head.
It seems you are more equipped to deal with the disinformation on social media than most of us. Although I understand the desire to step away from the fray, a mind like yours is sorely needed in times like this.
That is not true unfortunately. I tend to be very left wing socially - economically I’m more left of center - and that was reflected on my social media as well - either pushing me towards more radical content or stoking anger with more radical right wing content to get me riled up and coming back for more.
I ended up with a growing hatred and emnity for a growing number of people and “groups”, and black and white thinking. Even though I was aware that I was being manipulated, it was still impossible to sit on a high horse above the fray.
It’s quite easy to manipulate human minds, even ones that are careful and aware. We can all be manipulated. It’s why advertising works, for example.
The only thing to do really is to not play that game. Avoid advertising, avoid other content curators deciding what you get to see and telling you how to reason, etc… realise that most people are empathetic, that most people want what’s best, and those that are radical have been manipulated to be that way, sadly.
Good question. But honestly you just got to look at history for the answer. Far-right extremism often do better when it’s hard times like we have right now.
We are unfortunately in one of those moments in history where far right authoritarianism is troublingly in vogue.
The right has a cohesive strategy for getting and keeping an animated base, while the libs are focusing on maintaining a status quo that people hate and are creating voter apathy.
Just to be clear liberal doesn’t really make that much sense in Europe as it dose in the US. Liberals are mostly on the right side of politics while in the US it’s on the left. So if you where to talk with European people then they would talk about the left or the right. In my country for instance the only party that is truly liberal is all the way to the right. The left is socialists mostly and while the US have some socialists the democrats in the US is much more to the right than most Europe “left” would be.
Right, you do have some politicians in the US like Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Occasio-Cortes who would be considered Social Democrats in Europe. But yeah, US politics are really opaque due to the two-party system. There are a lot of politicians in the Democratic party who would be considered center-right market liberals in Europe.
From what I see, the center left politicians in Europe are still liberals supporting capitalism. More of a social democracy which is for sure better than the individualistic libertarian ideas being promoted in the states, but capitalist none the less. Still not fully addressing the ethics of the population as a whole.
Also, I do realize that America isn’t the center of the world, but it definitely has serious impact on what the people of the world see as the trajectory of the future. Especially if (and this is pure speculation) if the right is able to create fox style echo chambers in other countries using the narrative of following the American superpower.
In this election, the “libs” are the VVD who, as a socialist (GL/PvdA) I’d hate to say but, are the most right wing reasonable party. You cannot project American political discourse and concepts on Dutch politics.
It’s going fascist.
Everyone thinks that Russia became hostile with war in Ukraine. They were already fighting war with the West for years and it is bringing fruits. It is the war of disinformation and unlike the traditional hot war, they are very good at it and it is now bringing fruits.
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Look up what Stephen harper is president of right now.
I don’t think this is Russia. Its ex Canadian PM
I’m sure if you look deep enough you’ll even see Russian links there. Harper is a vile weasel.
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Capitalism makes living harder, populist fascism fools voters, cycle repeats
Social media, mostly.
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They’ll probably have 16 parties getting seats and many refuse to work with him. He’s not going to be prime minister or anything.
Sure, but that only works up to a certain point. When they are ignored, voters will get even more annoyed and he might grow towards next election and become impossible to ignore. The same is happening with Vlaams Belang in Vlaanderen.
I like your optimism, but VVD and NSC are probably going to try to work with Wilders.
Won’t get them a majority in the senate, with BBB they have 30 of the required 38 seats there.
They don’t need one. It would be convenient, but it’s not required
Bist du faschistisch?
Please don’t confuse The Netherlands with Germany. In NL they speak Dutch (“Netherlandish”), in DE they speak Deutsch (German).
Confusing? Yes. But it is what it is.
(And don’t get me started about Holland vs. The Netherlands :) )
Unpopular take incoming: The Left is principally made up of people who are Agreeable, so they want to help others rather than win resources over others. What happened is the Left are unable to draw lines and limits on certain issues for fear of causing pain. The end result is this alienates a lot of swing voters, often in the working classes.
The Left has always been a haven of the middle classes. They become so preoccupied with calling working class people bigots / stupid, that they forget that the working classes often feel the impact of politics more strongly and are more incentivised to vote.
This is an issue with the left deviating from reason and reality due to an increasing population of younger left wing supporters who have barely spent any time in physical reality, being the most online generation yet. Some of the physical realities that affect the largely natively white working class population in western european countries simply do not occur to these middle class, left wing people.
Migrant workers competing for jobs and class (being told they are better than you and being passed over on jobs by them), eco friendly and green societal initiatives making things often less functional and more expensive, etc etc.
One could blame the ruling classes for some of these elements but truth be told, the bottom half of the middle classes start feeling these effects, they start to see a different perspective too.
Politics has always, and will always follow Economics.
So the issue is that we haven’t given neoliberals enough after giving them everything?
Could you unpack this a bit for discussions sake
When the going gets tough the tough get going… Economic crisis, inflation, unemployment, keep choking people with taxes “for welfare” and this is the result. It was politicians and economists who should have studied history and learned before making all this happen, now we can’t blame lay people.
Right it’s welfare making people poor, not corporations pocketing nearly all economic growth for the last few decades.
Nobody ask how all the wealth has trickled up to a handful of techno-billionaires at the very top!
The slide towards far-right fascism continues…
Don’t worry, the headline is too sensational. (Which is a pet peeve of mine anyway: headlines should be objective. I can make up my own mind please)
He didn’t win a majority. He won’t form a goverment. If he does, he will be powerless in the coalition. If he does get to make laws, they won’t pass the senate (called “1ste kamer” in NL). And if he does, the government will fall anyway (which is a Dutch tradition anyway).
So a lot of ‘outs’ :)
No worries!
Only your last one seems valid. Dutch coalitions aren’t very stable. The only stable factor of the last 12 years has recently left politics.
The question is indeed who is willing to form a coalition government. The most likely option is PVV (far right), VVD (neoliberal), and NSC (Christian democrats), of the latter can convince their voters they can accept the far right.
Not very stable indeed. Since ‘Kok’ (2002!), NL has had 1 cabinet come to full term (Rutte II I believe). In 21 years 8 goverments. 1 full term of 4 years, so 7 in 17 years. Elections every 2,5 years on average :/
But hey, at least NL is not Belgium :D
*Sad Belgian noises
So just any belgian noises then?
I’d wish upon Omtzigt to stick to his morals and tell the PVV to pound sand. Meanwhile, Timmermans has already declared that he’s ready to lead the opposition, and he has a history of zero patience for fascists, so there’s a chance this’ll become a minority coalition.
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He only got 25% of the vote and it’s a consolidation of other right wing votes, so there is no right wing majority.
So it’s not much different than earlier elections, but now it’s concentrated in his party, making him the largest.
He will not be able to form a government without making concessions. And making concessions will lose him voters.
So yeah, interesting times, but I am not worried.
The headline seems much more sensational than the numbers lead me to believe.
In most countries “winning” the election implies having a majority.
In coalition countries like ours, it only means becoming the biggest party.
Hence why the headline might lead people to a wrong conclusion.
Practically speaking, it’s more important which potential coalition has a majority. And the parties on the right don’t have a clear majority, nor do the left parties.
So it will either be a center-right or center-left coalition.
Center-right will be attempted first, since we customarily let the largest party initiate, but it will be quite difficult since we have two chambers and different parties on the right are big in different chambers.
If he fails, center-left has a clear majority in both chambers with the same parties.
Edit: need to correct a mistake. Center-left also doesn’t have a clear majority in both chambers. Two of the big parties in this election have very few seats in the other chamber.
But not a problem, we often have coalitions that don’t have a majority in the Senate. Our House (this election) is more decisive and the Senate more facilitating.
A GL/PvdA-VVD-NSC-BBB combo has a majority in all chambers. It’s a difficult coalition, but the only one that seemingly commands a majority in both chambers.
I guess netherlands was like, “you know, things have been going too well here”
Things have been going shit here actually, and blaming minorities for a country’s problems is still a surefire way to win votes. As a dutch person I’m sad, embarrassed, and scared.
“Going to shit”, really?
NL is one of the best countries in the world. Yes we have some challenges, e.g. stikstof or crappy goverment (e.g.toeslagenaffaire), but common, don’t be soo fatalistic.
And yes, live is getting very expensive. Which is the result of the late-game capitalistic piramid scheme we live in. That sucks, sure. But that is not solvable any time soon. Especially not by NL :D
- the government doesn’t take climate change seriously
- it is basically impossible for a large group of people (including me) to ever buy a home
- any sort of nature here is dead and over half the country doesn’t seem to care
- inequality has been growing for decades
- the country is incredibly polarized
- after over a decade of neo liberal VVD policy, the majority of people apparently yearn for even more right wing policy
- Ajax are 12th in the eredivisie
Or course I’m being a bit dramatic but considering how things were I do think the Netherlands is going to shit a little bit. Of course it’s a better place to live than many other places, but in my opinion it’s definitely getting worse.
NL is one of the best countries in the world.
That can change. Norway is also one of the best countries in the world, but they’ve been doing the same thing I see happening in the UK: not funding health care adequately, police corruption scandals, refusing to decriminalise and legalise drugs, not really using the oil fund money enough (unlike Alaska (US) which pays dividends to its citizens from its oil fund, not exactly a left-wing US state compared to Norway), welfare benefits being reduced, the Norwegian state used to fund housing coop development which led to 20% of our population living in democratic housing but isn’t doing that anymore and now we’re in a housing crisis, inequality has grown over the last 50 years, union density has reduced over the last 50 years, …
When we’re talking about things going to shit we mean relative to where we were before. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot I wish we had in the UK that Norway has, but the trajectory looks oddly similar to what happened and is happening in the UK. We’re currently boiling frogs and because things are going to shit so slowly it’s harder to notice. Like, so much counter evidence to what we’re doing exists around the world if we simply look at how other areas are solving problems. For example, Finland is the only country in the EU where homelessness isn’t increasing and housing prices have actually decreased* - wanna guess how they did that? (hint: the state gave people free housing)
* at least until recently, housing markets are weird now because of the inflation, but theirs were falling before that
People need to understand that in a democracy, winning the plurality of the votes is not the same as winning the election. If no-one will work with him, he will not be in government.
In a republic*, ftfy. Republics and majority rule in general are not at all so democratic. The vast majority of the population has entirely no input in government.
Yeah but they’re still democratic systems.
Republic, you say? *King Willem-Alexander has entered the chat*
Does he have any effective political power?
not until he forms a coalition
Wait what? In the Netherlands the king forms a coalition? Or is it like in Belgium where the king appoints someone to try make a coalition and if he can’t then appoints someone else. Usually party heads of the parties in decreasing order of number of votes 😅 I guess the only real power the Belgian king has is censoring a party from initiating coalition talks.
oh i misread the comment you were replying to
no, the king has no real political power and constitutionally cannot have any
in fact, in practice he barely has a job in general and only exists to (?)
The Netherlands isn’t a republic and republic basically just means “not a monarchy”. Whether it’s democratic or not is an entirely different matter.
Hell, North Korea is a republic. So is Finland. You can be a democracy without being a republic and a republic without being a democracy.
The Netherlands isn’t a republic and republic basically just means “not a monarchy”.
A republic means a state with representative democracy. (Not strictly necessarily representative, but it’s hard to even imagine a State system with full democracy.)
You can be a democracy without being a republic and a republic without being a democracy.
Exactly, because a republic isn’t very democratic. What I’m saying is that representative democracy is barely democratic at all. Especially when using systems like majority rule. In most representative democracies today, the general public is barely if at all participating in the government of public affairs. I’m purposefully using the original meaning of the word democracy: government by the people or the people governing themselves. If the only way we can govern is by checking a box on a ballot twice a decade and that resulting in anywhere between 1 and 250 people having full authority over an entire country, I would not call that governing at all. And it shows that in most republics, policy enacted by their governments rarely represent what people actually want and care about.
There’s a few definitions but this is the first one in quite a few dictionaries and on Wiki
A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
While Wikipedia mentions that power rests with the public (hence the name) instead of a monarch:
Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry. In many historical republics, representation has been based on personal status and the role of elections has been limited. This remains true today; among the 159 states that use the word “republic” in their official names as of 2017, and other states formally constituted as republics, are states that narrowly constrain both the right of representation and the process of election.
Exactly, because a republic isn’t very democratic. What I’m saying is that representative democracy is barely democratic at all.
Those are two different things.
Would you argue that the head of the state of the Netherlands is the king? It being written to be so doesn’t mean it is so in practice.
Would I argue that the king is the head of the state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? Obviously?
The Kingdom of the Netherlands (Dutch: Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, pronounced [ˈkoːnɪŋkrɛik dɛr ˈneːdərlɑndə(n)] ⓘ),[g] commonly known simply as the Netherlands,[h] is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of autonomous territories united under the monarch of the Netherlands who functions as head of state.
Sure that’s in paper. But does he head the state? North Korea is also a democratic republic if you go by the official definition…
I’m from Belgium, which is also a kingdom, but our king has absolutely no power. The state is headed by the federal government, not by the king, in practice. I would imagine that to be the case in the Netherlands too.
Geert Wilder wins Dutch election
35 of the 150 seats in parliament
Let’s please stop using FPTP language to describe very non-FPTP systems and outcomes.
Agreed “win” is too simplistic. Still good shot at forming government though. I’m not familiar with the Dutch system, but, even in systems with proportional representation, the plurality winner usually gets first shot at forming government, and by convention usually does form government. They need 76 seats to govern and are more than halfway there with 37.
I don’t know how the Dutch system works, but some time ago a pro-Russian party won like 30-40% of seats in Latvia, but every other party joined together against them. And they couldn’t do shit even though they had the biggest number of seats. If it’s not 50%+1 - it doesn’t matter.
Fuck.
Don’t worry. He didn’t win the majority. Headline is too sensational.
The Netherlands has always been a centrist, or even socialist, country. That won’t change.
In fact, this could be a blessing in disguise: let him try to form a goverment. He won’t. And if he does, he will fail making policies/laws that are too far right anyway. And then after a few years, the coalition will fall apart. And we will vote again. And then he will lose this temporary win again.
I am 0% worried.
I’m quite sure he will fail. Still worried.
“Politics of me” beats “politics of we” once again.
More like “politics of being to dumb to see further than the tip of if my own nose”.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a dramatic result that will stun European politics, his Freedom Party (PVV) is set to win around 35 of the 150 seats in parliament — more than double the number it secured in the 2021 election, according to exit polls.
Dilan Yeşilgöz, outgoing premier Mark Rutte’s successor as head of the center-right VVD, suffered heavy losses and is on course to take 24 seats, 10 fewer than before, according to the updated exit poll by Ipsos for national broadcaster NOS.
A win for Wilders will put the Netherlands on track — potentially — for a dramatic shift in direction, after Rutte’s four consecutive centrist governments.
“This exit poll is historic; it is the biggest shift we have ever seen in the Netherlands,” political scientist Tom van der Meer told national broadcaster NOS.
And Pieter Omtzigt, whose newly formed party is projected to win 20 seats, has previously ruled out joining forces with Wilders at all, saying his anti-Islam policies go against freedoms of expression and religion that are enshrined in the Dutch constitution.
She ended the short speech thanking her team and supporters, and left the stage to the sound of Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night followed by Avicii’s Wake me Up.
The original article contains 1,049 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I bet I can do even better: PVV got 30 of 150 seats. They might be able to use these for something or they might not.
I’m assuming that the clothing and appearance copying Trump are on purpose.
He has looked like that far before trump meant something outside of the US.
Gotcha. Thanks for the info!
Nope. He has been wearing that for years.
Wow. That’s actually surprising
That Trump copied someone?
No, that they’ve both had this costume independently.
Although I wouldn’t put it past Trump to copy someone else.
what does that mean for policy changes in the Netherlands? without parliamentary majority, can he make any real changes?
Depends on what compromises he needs to make in order to form a government. The 3rd and 4th biggest parties are also right wing, so I don’t think he needs to make many, unfortunately.
Government has been ignoring voters for years, executing a globalist agenda and forcing the worlds strictest environmental policies. This created a populist undercurrent that’s now surfacing.
Bullshit, over half the people voted on the government at all times. “Globalist agenda” is conspiracy nut territory and the environmental policies that were introduced over the years don’t do shit.
Y’all are just fascists.
