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.

  • DessertStorms
    0•1 year ago

    if you look at their program, apart from the anti-jew rhetoric, they want affordable care and lower the pension age. Clear centrist/left-wing viewpoints. And this is overlooked by the oversimplifying media.

    Sounds familiar, doesn’t it… Like some sort of… National Socialism… 🤔🤔🤔

    • @JdWEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Listen, I would be the first to point fingers. And I did in case of the FvD. And yes, Wilders is inherently untustworthy and undemocratic.

      But the people voting for him en masse do not vote for him for that. I did not make the point that the PVV is not a dangerous party, but the media is portraying his voters as rabid racists, and that is (sadly) untrue, he managed to grab the interest of the lower middleclass and elderly, incuding second and third generation immigrants. They are concerned with housing, healthcare and spending power.