Thanks for the insightI was thinking it might actually be lucky that Omtzigt created his new party now. If Wilders is in any coalition, it will include the NSC, and the one thing Omtzigt will absolutely demand is sound processes and legitimate decisions. That might be an important factor in preventing Wilders from going nuts on some of his worst Islamophobic ant anti-immigration ideas. I don't think the VVD would do as much to stop that, and without Omtzigt, probably the BBB would have had those 20 seats, and they wouldn't have had the same scruples either (plus they'd deliver a lot of seats in the senate).
Trying to find positives!
That doesn't actually apply to the Netherlands, cause there's still a pretty sizeable centre. NSC and CDA are pretty centrist parties (leaning right a little), as is D66 (maybe leaning a little more left), PvdA/GroenLinks is really just centre left, and the VVD under Rutte was pretty centre right (but not as much right now). Even the BBB isn't a radical party; outside their stronger points on nitrogen emissions management, they're a lot like the CDA and NSC; and on the left you've got parties like Volt and PvdD that aren't quite that much out there either. You could disagree on how far left or right from the centre these parties are exactly, but they are certainly not the product of a polarized society. They rather reflect the splintering of the Dutch electorate, where you got parties for a ton of specific issues now (and who largely just copy other parties beyond that). You could talk about polarization for Wilders and the SP maybe, or for ChristenUnie and the SGP in a religious sense (and Denk?), but their further rightist and leftist positions are far older than the current climate of polarization - of which Baudet's FvD is really the main exponent in the Netherlands, and he's commonly seen as a nutter.
That's not to say that Dutch society isn't polarized at all, but I don't think it's reflected all that much in its political landscape.
Dutch general elections on Wednesday!
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By far the dumbest point of Wilders' whole election plan (that's probably not a term in English) is the point; "stop broadcasting government info in Turkish/ Arabic". The level of pettiness just blows my fecking mind.
Facts don't ca.... nah.
It's obviously a bit mean to state this, but it's hardly untrue. Most people áre dumb, which is the biggest downside of democracy.
Facts don't ca.... nah.
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Some real arrogance throughout your posts in this thread.
One to challenge the consensus in the Are you politically aligned with your partner? thread
A tad off topic but not really as it's related. Started watching the 3rd season of Party Down recently (comedy about caterers in LA). The 3rd episode was very much related to the current political climate and social media like the person in the image above takes advantage off. It's a comedy but it's actually social commentary on how the far right and alt right manipulate the narrative and utilize social media to get to, like @KirkDuyt mentions, the common man.
He is absolutely right though isn't he? Democracy is giving a voice and power to the population, by far most of whom have absolutely no idea what they are actually voting for and what the consequences will be. Combine that with social media where lies and disinformation reign, you could question whether it is still the right governing model to ask the general population which way to go in terms of governing the country the next four years.
Do you have a better idea?
Doesn't equal being dumb, it just shows how out of touch people are with modern-day politics and how difficult it is to (properly) inform your citizens about what your party stands for imo. Only the die hards know what each party stands for, the others likely just vote based on looks, appearance, how well-spoken someone is, that one live TV debate they watched by accident, a relative/friend being a member of a particular party, ...
Surely the success of populism is evidence enough that people are not necessarily capable of voting in their best interest?
I have no qualms about admitting I feel superior to people who vote for Geert Wilders. That does make me arrogant. I give no fecks. This racist shitbag winning the election has done little to improve my faith in humanity. I would gladly trade him for an arrogant pm
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I word it a bit strongly (out of frustration. DO I SEEM FRUSTRATED?!). Dumb is wrong word. Uninterested and uninformed is a better term. People want someone else to blame for their misfortune and Geert gives them a nicr scapegoat. Why investigate when you can just blame your muslim neighbour for losing your job. People are generally selfish and admittedly, politics are boring, so why bother.
I fear the day we adopt adopt a bind referendum and let us vote on Nexit though...
Maybe I should threadban myself. I came here to avoid Dutch politics
Brexit went so horribly wrong, that I hope that even with Geert Wilders, Nexit won't become a thingI word it a bit strongly (out of frustration. DO I SEEM FRUSTRATED?!). Dumb is wrong word. Uninterested and uninformed is a better term. People want someone else to blame for their misfortune and Geert gives them a nicr scapegoat. Why investigate when you can just blame your muslim neighbour for losing your job. People are generally selfish and admittedly, politics are boring, so why bother.
I fear the day we adopt adopt a bind referendum and let us vote on Nexit though...
Maybe I should threadban myself. I came here to avoid Dutch politics
The thing is, people championing Nexit simply state that Brexit was a huge success and their followers believe them.
Not dumb, but extremely naive maybe? I have family members and friends who are going to vote Vlaams Belang. When I ask them why: "foreigners get free money, they come here for no reason, they take our jobs..." The usual garbage. Their main source of information is often social media.
I have taken the time to debunk all of that and they really can see my reasoning. They understand what I'm saying and agree with most of it. And they'll just for Vlaams Belang either way, because they actually think they'll do everything better, will reduce taxes and will fix all immigration issues. Frustrating.
The other issue is that democracy promotes short-term thinking, cause for a politician, any policy ideally has its impact before the next elections, so it helps with re-election. That's one of the reasons why climate change isn't properly being addressed in most places, cause it's long-term and may hurt economically. Plus you can't be populistic about climate change policies, while going against them works great.
Not that I know a better system, mind.
It's also the politicians though. I just can't understand how probably otherwise quite intelligent people like Wilders believe what they do politically. You wouldn't have to worry about voters being fooled too easily if politicians weren't fooling them as much.
That's the problem nowadays I guess. Politicians go from election to election, and do actual governing for like 2 years in between, too short to actually accomplish something. We used to have the same prime ministers for 10+ years, working towards something.
Politicians have to be held more accountable. The likes of Trump who (probably literally) could kill a person and still get elected have had a massive impact on politics around the world. Bolsonaro, Milei in Argentina, Wilders, Orban... all owe Trump for being in power.
I posted "don't forget that you support racism if you vote Vlaams Belang today" in a lot of Whatsapp group chats on the day of the last elections in 2019. Don't think I have anyone in my close circle who actually does, although a few older family members indeed lean towards the common line of "it's all because of them foreigners".
This is also something I cannot really wrap my head around. Surely Geert Wilders knows that almost his entire list of policy ideas are entirely unrealistic or outright incompatible with the constitution.
Setting aside the obvious stuff like banning all mosques, banning all muslim schools (religious school are fine, just not THAT religion), let's take eduction as an example. He states; "add way more teachers"! There is no plan behind this, it's just that one sentence, "add way more teachers". He has no plan for reversing the growing lack of teachers due to an aging teacherspopulation and young people choosing different careers due to a meriad of reasons. He will simply find new teachers (perhaps he can use a 3d printer or invent a cloning device) and put them in front of our classrooms. I'm sure if you ask him, he will say something along the lines of, "we will triple their pay and give them free beer for life" for which he has no plan either. Geert knows this, I can't imagine he doesn't, but he says it because he knows his voters won't bother to think it trough and will just hear, hey free beer, awesome! Calling his voters dumb is mean and @VorZakone is right, my tone has been a bit cnutish in this topic, but this whole right wing nationalist wave we say almost globally makes me sad and unlike socialists of old I don't plan to cut of people's heads so I have to vent my sadness somewhere.
Well, everything is doable if you make these jobs more attractive - which costs money, but that can be raised through tax increases. In general, I wouldn't be against any of that actually! Although of course usually these types rather cut something else. I think Wilders said he'll have plenty of money by cancelling all climate- and nitrogen-related investments.
Also a fun detail: because of the aging population, and the Dutch tendancy to work part-time, the Dutch workforce just isn't big enough to fill all these jobs. (Also without working part-time, cause Canada is facing the same problem.) I mean, if you make teaching more interesting, some other job sector will suffer instead; so you promote that work next, and another sector will suffer; and so on. That chain will end eventually, at job types that you just can't make more interesting and that people will just stop wanting to do. In fact, that's happened already in the Netherlands, like in greenhouses and warehouses. How do you connect that to putting a hard stop to immigration?
But apart from irrealistic promises, I also meant that I just can't get how people really believe some of their ideas in their first place. Does Wilders really believe that the Islam as a religion is fundamentally bad, and as such profoundly different from basically any other religion? I find that hard to believe - but then I can't wrap my head around racism either, and there are definitely some intelligent people that are deeply racist. So maybe that's my problem: I can't empathize with these people enough...
Parties that came in 3rd and 4th, with 44 seats total, (based on names) are led by people from a Turkish background, while the 1st place party is from a total racist. Was their background an open or hidden part of the campaign?
I imagine "they need us more than we need them" is tougher to sell in Holland?
The fourth party is the NSC, led by Pieter Omtzigt, that's a Dutch name ('Omt-zigt', with 'g' produced here like 'ch' in 'loch'). But yes, the third (VVD) is led by Dilan Yesilgöz, who was born in Turkey and came to the Netherlands with her parents when she was 7. She's actually not just a stand-out because of that, but also because she was the first Dutch female politician with a real chance of becoming the prime-minister - which has only been a remote possibility in the past for any women. (And of course again didn't happen; the Netherlands aren't far advanced in gender equity).
However, these are really not VVD themes. Gender equity isn't something their base is very interested in, and the VVD went in hard against immigration these elections (also in the past, but less so under Rutte for a while). So ironically, while Yesilgöz's background could have been an advantage in the hands of other parties, the VVD couldn't really use it much. It was mentioned sometimes, but they mostly just 'let it be'.
(All other party leaders also have Dutch names, but actually DENK's Stephan van Baarle has a Turkish dad. That's kind of a must in his case though, as DENK is primarily focused on representing the Turkish-Dutch community.)
RT is gone but I have no doubt they are paying a lot of these anti immigration right wing social media figures stirring things up in western countries . Ukraine are fecked with the way things are going.
Wilders himself is 50% Indonesian actually
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10 year terms?
Not a bad idea. But you'd need some kind of check on that as well. If your government has a 50.1% majority, should you really be able to govern unopposed for 10 years? Some second chamber structure with a limited role that has more frequent elections might help for mid-term course corrections.
Do they? Or is it that they've been ignored, ridiculed and silenced by liberal parties for years allowing far right groups to exploit the situation by pretending to listen and have answers?
Extremism thrives only when people have been failed. Right wing, left wing, religious or any other type.
Or, they're usually the poorest lacking access to things many who belittle them take for granted.
Guessing one parent was born in a Dutch colony or something then?Wilders himself is 50% Indonesian actually
Though it's not uncommon for immigrants from previous generations to have conservative views on immigration.
30% of the Dutch voter base is not ignorant because they are too poor to have access to education or information. Most people who vote for Wilders do it, because they would like, as Wilders so eloquently put it a few years ago, MINDER, MINDER, MINDER, immigrants. Wilders himself had access to plenty of everything you need, not to be the vile cnut he is. I realize people aren't born racist and that people like Wilders are very good at exploiting people's feeling of discontent by feeding them things they want to hear, but in modernday Dutch society, almost everyone has access to sources to find out that hating people because they're a different colour or of a different religion is wrong.
Doesn't make it any less hypocritical. And calling his views on immigration conservative is a bit of a euphemism. His views are racist. He's also ethnically part Indonesian by the way, that's why he dyes his hair, makes him seem more white.
PS: I have since calmed, but I was a bit agitated by the results
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Just to expand on that a little: he has stated explicitly that he wants to ban the Kuran, close all muslim schools (which would be against the current Dutch constitution), that Islam is 'the ideology of a retarded culture', and has single out Moroccan Dutch in particular as being criminal and so on. There is an overview of some of these statements here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nd-unrepentant-geert-wilders-in-his-own-words
It's really not simple ignorance that's going on here.
I don't really see the big deal. Does he have any realistic chance of forming an effective government which can deliver on even a few of his key promises? I somehow doubt that immigration is going to stop under his watch, even if he had a solid governing majority.
The realization that roughly 30% of your country voted for Geert Wilders is shite regardless.
Sure, but if it's any cosolation these types don't really have much chance of achieving anything. Worst case scenario seems to be he stays in power for four years while without changing much, except now his face will be everywhere. I imagine those 30 % will be much more frustrated with the lack of any results despite this supposed win than anyone else.
He does unfortunately, cause the most obvious coalition is entirely right wing (to various degrees), with three or four parties that are all for strong limits to immigration. Wilders won't get too far on his Islamophobic points hopefully, but the Netherlands will likely be taking a very hard stance on immigration. Proper action on climate change and nitrogen emissions is also out of the window now.
Social welfare is more interesting though. Wilders, and maybe also NSC and BBB, are actually vaguely leftist on that, as opposed to the VVD, who are the proper capitalist right in that sense. I wonder where that will go. All areas for trade-off in the coalition talks I guess.
Not if the VVD keep their word. Bunch of cowards are once again ducking all responsibility by not even coming to the table for negotiations. It's either a big feck you to 80% of their voters (who want them to sit down with the PVV) or a sly attempt to regain some control by becoming a toleration party (or whatever you call it in English) thus controlling which resolutions from the coalition pass and which don't. Honestly we might be better off with new elections which would hopefully see VVD take another big hit after this shambles.
I just hope they won't kill statefunded television (dunno what to call the NPO in English) and impoverish everyone in the cultural and art sectors. For someone who is so very adamant about wanting to preserve our culture, Wilders is very hesitant in facilitating people who actively contribute to it. Though ofcourse by our culture Wilders doesn't mean paintings, he means being white and not believing in Allah.
I think it's just a negotiation tactic: they are playing hard to get to obtain more concessions. Most of the VVD's base would love to be in this government (was it 80%), so they can't really want to stay out.
I was thinking this governing with Wilders thing has opened Pandora's box though. Now either the coalition partners give him everything he wants and the Netherlands becomes Islamophobic and anti-immigration by policy, or they don't and then Wilders can simply run on the exact same platform again at the next elections.
It's a lose-lose. Great strategic decision by Rutte to blow up the government over immigration and make that the main theme of the elections.
I'm not eliminating the possibility of the PVV imploding itself due to not having enough capable people in the party to actually form a government. They're mostly just Geert Wilders and a bunch of weirdo's after all. Well except Martin Bosma, he's a serious person I guess.
Is it really controversial or offensive to say the majority are politically dumb?
I’m a reasonably intelligent person but I’m politically dumb. I know many family and friends who have voted for dumb reasons. They wouldn’t have called them dumb, but they wouldn’t for a second claim they were well-reasoned, well-informed choices either. They don’t attach that kind of weight to it.
“I don’t know much about the guy I voted for but I know I didn’t like the sound of that other guy” is a very common decision in a society where political apathy is normalised and politicians across the board are distrusted.
Many of the people I grew up with vote for their clan, the party their family determined they vote for. They don’t feel particularly strongly about that vote, and often they don’t know anything substantive about the party leader. They’re just doing their part and they don’t think much on it.
The people who are politically informed in a serious way are the minority everywhere I’ve been. I’d almost say it’s offensive to suggest the majority of people aren’t politically dumb, because it requires you to ignore that majority and assume everyone else is like you (or how you see yourself).