#pvv

The drawing depicted two women; a young blonde with a friendly expression and a scowling older woman wearing a headscarf. On top of the image was a nod to this month’s general election in the Netherlands, along with the phrase “The choice is yours.” The social media post, made by the far-right, anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, prompted a record 14,000 complaints to the country’s anti-discrimination hotline. “Many of those who called to report the image compared it to Nazi propaganda from the second world war,” the hotline said in a statement, adding that the 19 anti-discrimination agencies associated with the hotline had flagged the post to police, amid concerns that it could be an incitement to hatred. It was a glimpse of how the discourse across the Netherlands has hardened in recent years, as politicians disproportionately target Muslims, asylum-seekers and other minority communities in a bid to drum up votes. As polls suggest that Wilders’ party could again emerge with the most votes, the election on 29 October has been recast as a broader litmus test for the country and its democratic ideals.“It isn’t just about Muslims. What’s at stake is the very idea of what it means to be Dutch,” said Esma Kendir of the Collective of Young Muslims. “So will the Netherlands continue to stand for equality, for human rights, for freedom of religion, or will it move towards exclusion and fear?” At the last election, the far-right Freedom party (PVV), led by Wilders, shocked the country by finishing first. The result gave rise to a fractious and fragile rightwing coalition – the first to fully include the PVV – and which collapsed 11 months later after Wilders pulled his support. For many in the Netherlands, the inclusion of Wilders’ party in government, after years of being mostly sidelined due to his extreme views, signalled a major shift. “When Geert Wilders and his party came into the government, it really felt like confirmation that open hostility towards the existence of Muslims is now politically acceptable,” said Kendir.

The extremist PVV led by anti-imigrant firebrand Geert Wilders lost 11 seats in the lower chamber (called the Tweede Kamer) of the Dutch parliament.

The biggest winner was the D66 (Democraten 66) party led by Rob Jetten which gained 17 seats. Both the PVV and D66 now have 26 seats in the 150 member Tweede Kamer.

With 99.7% of the votes counted, here is where the parties now stand.

No party has had a majority since the Tweede Kamer was expanded to 150 in the mid 1950s. So it can take weeks or even months to put together a coalition which adds up to a 76 seat majority.

One possibility is a coalition which includes the VVD, CDA, GL/PvdA, and D66. All are pro-democracy and in the European mainstream. Together they would have 86 seats – a comfortable majority.

As leader of D66, Rob Jetten is in a good position to become prime minister. Jetten would probably not be Donald Trump's favorite foreign leader. 😛

From POLITICO...

Once dubbed “Robot Jetten” because of the clunky manner he answered questions, Jetten is now in pole position to become the future prime minister of the Netherlands. Despite the unfavorable early nickname, the 38-year-old — who is openly gay — has since become a charming and media-savvy poster-boy for D66’s positive and progressive-liberal platform. [ ... ] Jetten will have to form a coalition and, to get the numbers for a majority, may need to carry out the unenviable task of convincing the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and left-wing GreenLeft-Labor to team up after bitterly campaigning against one another.  The challenge isn’t lost on Jetten. With around 26 seats, D66 is “a small large party, when compared with Dutch history,” he said on election night. “So we’ll have to cooperate with many parties.”

So Jetten is a gay, moderately progressive, pro-EU millennial whose English is more comprehensible than Trump's.

Trump will be even more perturbed when he learns that D66's election slogan "Het kan wél" is roughly the Dutch equivalent of Barack Obama's slogan "Yes we can".

This election counters the narrative that populist far right rule is an inevitability. When the forces of democracy unite, they win.

It’s so much easier to make people feel afraid than it is to make them feel hopeful or safe or supported. Right wing populism preys on people’s fears and stokes pre-existing anxieties, while also providing an individual “strongman” that people can look to for resolution. Simple and effective.

If we look at left-wing policies or general ideological talking points, they require both:

an inherent empathy/sympathy for strangers and community alike

a strong persistence to work against pre-existing institutions/structures to achieve that which isn’t often simple

It requires more effort, more funding, and occasionally can’t be simplified into layman’s terms, which ostracizes those who can’t reach higher education. This, above all else, is what makes right-wing populist rhetoric so effective - it’s approachable. It doesn’t ask you to care for others (quite the opposite) outside of your own interests. It’s comforting to have a powerful leader who “isn’t afraid to speak the truth” or “tell it like it is”, when the preceding leaders have all spoken outside your comprehension and made you feel isolated from your country in their education, class, and/or status.

And it will probably work, too, because everyone else is fractured, leaving him the biggest and loudest focal point of the entire political scene. Which means politically disengaged people, who are also mildly racist, will rally to him as the "cool, badass" option.

The Trump playbook.