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.

  • ahornsirup@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Same thing that’s up with it in the US. They offer simple “solutions” to complex problems, and (at least in the UK and Germany, not sure about the Netherlands) they’re fuelled by right-wing media conglomerates.

    • moitoi@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      The same everywhere.

      Also, any other party thinks it has to push a neoliberal agenda (except one or two). And, this agenda makes people vote for the far-right at the end.

      In the Netherlands, they have the issue with the Mocro mafia and this doesn’t help.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Besides simple solutions, they also offer simple culprits for everything that is bad, where the default is usually some form of immigrant. But green/left activists are also a well-received target. Or the EU.