EU leaders should take note but it's too simplistic to say populists are taking over, says Katya Adler.

The unexpectedly meaty win for controversial, hard-right politician Geert Wilders in Wednesday’s general election in the Netherlands set international headlines on fire.

Right-wing nationalists across Europe rushed to congratulate the populist politician, sometimes dubbed the Dutch Trump - partly for his dyed, bouffant-like hairdo, and partly for his famously firebrand rhetoric.

Geert Wilders’ publicly expressed views - including linking Muslim immigration with terrorism and calling for a ban on mosques and the Quran - are so provocative that he has been under tight police protection since 2004.

Wilders was convicted of inciting discrimination, although later acquitted, and he was refused entry to the UK back in 2009.

But Europe’s far right believes their views have now become more mainstream.

  • qazEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    … they want affordable care and lower the pension age. Clear centrist/left-wing viewpoints

    They didn’t let the CBP check their plans and have shared very little about how they plan to pay for it. Anyone can be in favor of lower pensions, affordable care, no tax raises, and more housing, promises cost nothing.

    • @JdWEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      But that’s hardly the point.

      Look, I am not saying Wilders is not a creep. But their success right now is despite him and his anti-constitutional viewpoints. There was room for a big populist party with mass appeal and they fill that void. And the media is misrepresenting his voters. I am not one of them, and would never be, but I do know quite a few of people that switched to PVV and they did so because they felt he would work to get the lower middle class and elderly a better standard of living, something all other parties seem to fail to deliver on.

    • @JdWEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Yes, I know. But I was not making the point the PVV are not promlematic. Read what I wrote.

      My point was that the media is portraying his voters as rabit right-wing bigots, and that is simply not true. dangeourly he managed to appeal to the centre, and people that look for housing, healthcare and spending power without too much interest in his extreme rhetoric.

      • qazEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        I’ve read what you wrote. I meant to say that they can make promises from all across the political spectrum because they never have to actually implement anything. They can appeal to people who want lower pensions, people who want higher pensions and people who want less taxes at the same time.