Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who has espoused anti-Islamic views for many years. He has campaigned on a platform of putting Dutch people first and blocking immigration from Muslim countries. He has been called the Dutch Trump. In the recent parliamentary elections, his party came in first among a field of 15 parties. It won 37 of 150 seats and will need to persuade other parties to join in a coalition in order to govern. In the past, Wilders has promised to close mosques and Islamic schools, but he is already moderating his hardline views to win over partners. Wilders will need 76 votes—39 more than he has now— to form a new government.
Veteran anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders has won a dramatic victory in the Dutch general election, with almost all votes counted.
After 25 years in parliament, his Freedom party (PVV) is set to win 37 seats, well ahead of his nearest rival, a left-wing alliance.
“The PVV can no longer be ignored,” he said. “We will govern.”
His win has shaken Dutch politics and it will send a shock across Europe too…
He told the BBC that “of course” he was willing to negotiate and compromise with other parties to become prime minister.
The PVV leader won after harnessing widespread frustration about migration, promising “borders closed” and putting on hold his promise to ban the Koran…
A Wilders victory will send shockwaves around Europe, as the Netherlands is one of the founding members of what became the European Union.
Nationalist and far-right leaders around Europe praised his achievement. In France, Marine Le Pen said it “confirms the growing attachment to the defence of national identities”.
Mr Wilders wants to hold a “Nexit” referendum to leave the EU, although he recognises there is no national mood to do so. He will have a hard time convincing any major prospective coalition partner to sign up to that.
He tempered his anti-Islam rhetoric in the run-up to the vote, saying there were more pressing issues at the moment and he was prepared to “put in the fridge” his policies on banning mosques and Islamic schools.
The strategy was a success, more than doubling his PVV party’s numbers in parliament.
For Americans, the elections in the Netherlands and Argentina raise an urgent question: are these elections a portent of the persistence of far-right politics or are they the after-effects of the Trump era? Are they the future or an echo of the past?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will he be able to form a Government. If not he represents just a minority party, stronger than he was. Hopefully the other parties unite and he can not.
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Agreed. Having a parliamentary system gives the Dutch greater latitude in forcing compromise and ultimately getting rid of a lemon leader. In the US we get stuck with at least four years of lemon leadership. When the vote is close in the legislature as well, we get obstruction and impasse.
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He would have trouble building a government if he wasn’t an extremist. He is, so it’s virtually impossible.
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The farmers in the region were tired of the government overreach.
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According to Aljazeera energy inflation stemming from the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russian oil seems to have been a major factor in his rise. The cost of energy has skyrocketed in the Netherlands. Prices doubled and tripled. They pay the highest taxes and their energy costs are the highest in Europe. I saw a report with a Dutch woman using candles and terracotta pots to save money on her gas bill. The dutch Govt. didn’t do nearly enough to help people with their energy bills. Wilder’s is promising to put money is the Dutch people’s pockets again.
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The cost of energy has skyrocketed in [Florida]. Prices doubled and tripled.
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The only little bit of input we are allowed is to vote. Make sure to vote and get like minded friends to so so also.
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A friend of mine just got back from Ukraine where he’s producing a documentary about the war. I’ll tell you all some details about that after I mention that he spoke with an arms dealer from Poland who said that in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and other countries in the region, the executive producer of whom I write could leave all his camera equipment and for that matter his wallet in any of those places for hours unattended, and it would still be there when he returned, unharmed. The Pole said immigration is the main cause of crime in the region. My friend and I got into a discussion from there about the differences in supporting immigrants between culturally monolithic countries versus the extremist capitalist society of the United States. There are differences. I’ll add another comment about the war in a few minutes.
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To the US, immigrants are an integral part of the economy. Not so in other parts of the world.
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And in other words, the Netherlands is not a harbinger for the United States. Two very different countries. Joe Biden will kick Daffy Donald’s butt.
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Regarding the war, well, holy borscht. It’s being fought almost entirely by drones. My friend who is producing the documentary about Ukraine is an American nearly 60 years old. He was offered a battlefield commission as a commander because he had a university degree and could shoot a Glock pistol straight. Anyone can join the military. The people actually running and fighting the war are mostly 20-30 somethings from neighboring countries who know how to play video games and therefore operate the drones, supervised by sexagenarians from across the region because everyone in the region hates Russia from a hundred years of attacks. The FSB targets mainly the families of drone operators to obtain their whereabouts.
The drones cost merely $500 each, are cheaply made by 3D printers, sometimes use AI to select targets, carry tank busting bombs that can make ground warfare obsolete and so the tanks have special anti-drone cages on them now, and are purchased and operated by independent fighters. People make deals with foreign spooks, diplomats, arms dealers, and adventure tourists to buy the drones. “Give me an investment of a few thousand dollars to buy some drones, and you can make a video of yourself riding along with troops.”
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But Dienne77 says that Ukrainians just LOVE Russia and Russians and would willingly join the Rodina if it weren’t for the bad Nazi Jewish leadership of Ukraine keeping them from doing so.
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I had a number of Ukrainian students over the years. They were very clear about their identity. They were adamantly Ukrainian, and they corrected anyone that called them Russian.
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The Urkainians want to be Russians fantasy is up there with “Putin has no intention of invading Ukraine” and “Putin had to invade because of Ukraine is a Nazi state.” Idiotic. This war has cemented Ukrainians’ feelings about Russia. They will have LONG memories of the raping and murdering of their grandmothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, etc.
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Fascinsting, LCT.
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Fascinating and terrifying. The first few months of the war were spent using up all the older weapons. Now, the war moves at breakneck pace. In the location I won’t specify online, where all the weapons dealers hang out, anyone can buy drones extremely cheaply. Anyone. And they’re so quiet you can’t hear them at all once they’re just a few meters off the ground. A kid with a laptop can fly it. Anyone. Anywhere.
On a happier note, however, life in the Ukrainian city, away from the true front lines is told to me to be copious and lovely.
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People are about the same. When people turn to a person for stability in a world that frightens them, they are just walking the path explained by Hobbes in Leviathan. Their pessimism leads to exploitation by charlatans, pretenders to the monarchy Hobbes depended on for the stability he craved.
The problem with the authoritarian is that it brings the social contract to the few by denying it to the many. It is fundamentally de-stabilizing to society, thus breaking Hobbes’ own social contract. Stability is the real enemy of the totalitarian. So they push for hegemony to train the public attention on the thing to fear. Absent one thing, they choose another. Soon they are at war, within or without.
This is what governmental failure looks like
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“ he is already moderating his hardline views to win over partners.”
One of the benefits of the parliamentary system.
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The Argentinan election is really electionS. The population is closely divided 3 ways, and… fickle. The primary election in August went: Freedom Advances [libertarian, Milei] 30.5%, Center for Change [center-right, Bullrich] 28.3%, Union for the Homeland [center-left Peronist coalition, Massa] 27.3%. The October 22 runoff reversed this! Peronists 36.6%, libertarian just over 30%, center-right 23.8%. So the November election was between the most polarized 2 parties– and Massa, Milei’s contender, has been the Minister of Economy for the last year of Argentina’s [out of control, failed] national economy… Massa lost by nearly 12%.
I talk regularly with a friend in Buenos Aires (my 40-ish prof for a long-running zoom class). Over the last year there were several stretches where goods in stores were unmarked because prices rose too fast to replace the stickers. The machinations he’s gone thro to get the most value possible out of the day’s peso are complex. The only conclusion I can draw is that the vote for Milei = “somebody make it stop.”
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