In recent years the far right hate has been spreading throughout the world….especially in Europe and the US….politicians like LePen of France, Orban of Hungary and of course our own beloved Donald the Orange and now the Netherlands….Geert Wilders has been around and mouthy for years and now he has a huge victory…..
After the huge election victory of far-right leader Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the world is paying a lot more attention to Dutch politics and the country’s alphabet soup of political parties. Wilders’ Party for Freedom—PVV—won 37 of the 150 seats in the lower house of the country’s parliament, leaving the country in what the Economist calls an “awful quandary.” Other parties have had a “cordon sanitaire” around the PVV in recent years, refusing to include the anti-Islam, anti immigration party in coalition governments, but it’s unclear whether other parties will be able to assemble a majority of at least 76 this time.
The next three biggest parties after Wednesday’s election—a Labour-GreenLeft alliance, the VVD, the NSC, and an alliance of Labour and GreenLeft parties—only have a combined 69 seats and they are “not enthusiastic about co-operating with each other,” the Economist notes. There’s a chance they could still form a coalition with one or two smaller parties, though Wilders argues that it would be undemocratic to keep his party out of government. More:
- How the “political earthquake” happened. Cas Mudde at the Guardian blames the “political earthquake” of Wilders’ surprising victory on Mark Rutte, the outgoing VVD prime minister. Rutte and his conservative party had hoped to dominate the election by shifting focus from a dispute involving farmers to the issue of asylum seekers, but they instead created fertile ground for Wilders, Mudde writes. “If you make the elections about the issues of the far right, notably the “problem” of immigration, the far right wins,” Mudde writes.
- Victory is
- boost for far-right across Europe. The AP reports that the strong showing for Wilders’ party has buoyed far-right populists across Europe, putting the movement back on track after a defeat in Poland last month. Those congratulating Wilders Thursday included Hungary’s Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen. Like Wilders, who wants to see a Dutch version of Brexit, Le Pen is strongly opposed to the European Union.
- A “middle finger against the establishment.” Rene Cuperus at the Clingendael Institute think-tank tells Reuters that proposals including leaving the EU and banning the Koran are not what attracted voters to Wilders. “It’s not an anti-Islam vote. It’s not an anti-EU vote. No, it’s more a middle finger against the establishment,” Cuperus says. “It’s an anti-establishment signal … to really warn the established parties to fix the housing market crisis and to fix migration.”
- The “Dutch Donald Trump.” The BBC looks at the background and policies of the man sometimes called the “Dutch Donald Trump,” who has been a prominent figure in the country’s politics for more than 25 years.
Other political parties were holding separate meetings to discuss the election’s outcome before what is likely to be an arduous process of forming a new governing coalition begins Friday. To become prime minister of a country known for compromise politics, Wilders must persuade other party leaders to work with him. The party that came next to Wilders’ in the election was an alliance of the center-left Labor Party and Green Left, which was forecast to win 25 seats, and its leader, Frans Timmermans, made clear that Wilders should not count on him as a partner. However, Pieter Omtzigt, a former centrist Christian Democrat who built his own New Social Contract party in three months to take 20 seats, said he would always be open to talks.
I hope that if any of this is wrong then my Dutch visitors will set the record straight.
These people are like disease infecting the world.
This situation will be fascinating to watch….the rise of these hate groupies is very disturbing and smacks of the 1920’s and 30’s.
Stay Tuned!
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
Thanx Ned….I much appreciate your help. chuq
A very fearful situation, all over Europe, and Germany is not staying away from some crazy changes. I fully agree with your opinion of situations like in the 1920’s and 30’s
. But in Europe i see the guilt in the democratic parties here. No countries politicans were able to communicate to their citizens what they are doing in the Europeon community. To agree to a system you have to know it. Best wishes, Michael – Enjoy your weekend! xx
Hi Michael nice to see you again…..I appreciate your thoughts….have a great Saturday chuq
Thanks, Chuq! I apologize for the delay, but we are renovating our old “castle”, and i’d converted to a construction worker. LoL Also enjoy your Sunday! xx Michael
No problem I am just glad when you visit and thank you….chuq
I get Der Spiegel, the weekly news magazine from Germany and some of the stuff I see happening in the EU is even more scary than what’s going on here. More and more people seem to be embracing this philosophy of paranoia, hatred, fear and prejudice and I don’t understand why.
Smacks of 1920s and 30s…..chuq
It does indeed. In college I spent an entire semester studying the period of time from the end of WWI to the beginnings of WWII and what I’m seeing right now is scarily similar to what happened back then, especially here in the US. Floods of propoganda, scapegoating, increases in racism and violence, a reluctance on the part of governments to enforce the law… The list goes on and on.
Between the wars is very telling and more people should take a look at then and now….they would be astonished. chuq
Sadly, the “anti-everyone else” movement is indeed worldwide…hated of those with different skin color, different nationalities, different religious beliefs…that hateful rhetoric spreads as “fear of others” seems to be the path to political victory…
It is sad but true…fear gets votes….I am writing one about Trump for next week I hope you a chance to read it. chuq
Always enjoy your posts and will look for it…fear is such an awful way to live…but I do understand how it works..I posted something right after the 2016 election regarding a short trip I took to central Oklahoma and shared some photos of dying towns in a red state that feels forgotten by Washington DC…I just read that’s why the Dutch election turned out the way it did, people said they felt forgotten by the leaders and this person was speaking to their anger and fears….sad
visitor from Holland hopefully she will fill in any blanks….thanx for the kind words. chuq
Hopefully, as so often happens, brains in the science community will come up with something to counteract this virus. Maybe even something that can eradicate the disease for ever this time. Hugs
I truly hope so…..thanx for the visit and comment…..I appreciate it…..chuq
The hate patterns of the 20s and 30s is definitely spreading and becoming more mainstream…and the inevitable result will be the same unless someone comes to their senses. But memories are short and the old saying, “Never Again” in relation to the social tragedies associated with extra-authoritarianism is simply pissing in the wind. It seems like the horrendous lessons to be learned from such horrors are only temporarily learned by the generation in which they occur.
Memorized are short and Americans can have the shortest…..chuq
Bingo!
I am not convinced we should label these creatures as the Far Right. They certainly have nothing in common with MagaRepublicans, Republican Christians , Republican Conservatives, Freedom Caucus , Esablishment Republicans , Neo-Con Republicans or the few old old John Birchers that may still be around. I think I’d just call these Europeans and South Americans Nationalist Fascists. I’d agree these groups are becoming more militant because they are tired of immigrant groups demanding a move away from the traditional ethnic values of the home country. I have read some reports that Swedes are upset because they’ve lost their country because open welcomes for immigrants has made them a larger part of the country’s population than Swedes. . I don’t have this particular citation in hand but it sounds reasonable. Huge Turkish population in Germany too. We had similar in Miami Dade County, Florida where the demographics and census shows the area 85% minority and well over 60% foreign born. Not much in the way of Memorial Day and Veterans Day or Flag Day parades and celebrations anymore. Those days are just another day to flock to the beach and get high and drunk. Some historians label the WW II dictators as from the Right too. No, they were just murderous dictators with no actual political or patriotic foundations except under propagandist pretences. .
I do not believe we can blame immigrants for the hatred and vile…..more like they hate democracy that gives most everyone an equal footing….they cannot stand that….if you look at fascism and its tenets then there is no other name for them in my book. chuq