Dutch Politics

Pretty much. Especially since any new windparks that get put up have to fight against the whole "not in my backyard" nonsense. Including the ones in the North Sea, as those would supposedly "ruin the view" and "negatively impact tourism".

I’ve done some digging. Apparently you can’t actually put wind turbines out at sea very easily, they often have a maximum water depth which means they need to be costal.

Googling about turning the North Sea into a wind farm brings up mention of a Dutch company suggesting the use of artificial islands to provide the support infrastructure and the existence of a floating wind farm off the UK coast which is providing much greater power generation that other farms.

If we can get wind farms properly out to sea we’ve got more space, stronger winds and less concern about spoiling the view.

Edited by Silasw on Jan 10th 2022 at 10:39:54 AM

It's also not entirely clear to me whether the reaction against the data centre is more about the negative effects or about it being a Facebook data centre. What with all the controversy around it, the latter may well be a big factor.

I mean, yeah, screw Facebook, any way to stick a finger in their eye is a good one.

NRC has a six part podcast on Pim Fortuyn, the Netherlands's start of right wing populism. He was assassinated on May 6 twenty years ago, being the first assassinated Dutch politician in centuries. This sparked an increased call for immigration control, a third branch of politics (the far right), and the demonization of the media (who had ignored him or derided him as a fascist).

So I've heard that famous Dutch singer "Vader Abraham" passed away

https://newsingermany.com/smurfs-song-dutch-pop-singer-vader-abraham-died/

Why am I putting this into the politics thread, one might ask. Well, he had a kind of...unsavory phase, where he was producing right-wing themed songs, like "Wat doen we met die Arabieren hier"

I basically only knew him from his kids songs, does anybody from the Netherlands know if he ever changed his politics?

Yes, the song was also very controversial, and he had to go into hiding for a while over it.

This was also, like, in 1975. It's very old news. I think he is pretty much only known for his Smurfs song these days, if that.

He's somewhat of a national icon, for better or worse, especially to the older generations. I can't say I care much for his music.

Yes, I think most people just remember the kids songs (or the lewd versions of them).

Edited by Redmess on Nov 11th 2022 at 11:49:29 AM

So the BBB (farmer's movement party) won big this election, and will be dominating the senate for the next four years, as well as local politics. Any thoughts?

What’s their platform, exactly?

The main thing is protesting against nitrogen regulation. The sitting coalition wants to reduce nitrogen output by 2030, which means that a lot of farmers would need to either modernize fast or close down altogether. The party's main base is farmers who believe 2030 is too fast, or are generally unsatisfied about not being heard and basically being ruled over by the elite (which isn't entirely unfounded). The rest is basically people who agree with not being heard by mainstream politics.

It's an extreme right wing party (in what some call a third column to the traditional centre-right and -left), but not quite as radical as FVD (who are basically openly supporting Putin and are very anti-elite and conspiratorial) or PVV (of the infamous racist Geert Wilders, who still did well in Rotterdam, apparently). Unlike those two others, it is possible that centre-right and even left wing parties may be willing to form a coalition with BBB. Not that they'd have much of a choice in many cases, either, since forming a counter-coalition with 5 or more parties is pretty much a non-starter even here.

PVV, the party of Geert Wilders, has won the election, and has a good chance to become prime minister.

He is called the Dutch Trump. He is anti-immigration (including expats), anti-refugee, anti-foreign-aid, anti-climate measures, anti-Muslim, anti-Ukraine, anti-Palestine...

It's pretty bad.

Which parties would be willing to form a coalition with him though? Because even the VVD and NSC would want some compromises with them.

Wilders would have to concede on some of his policies, yes. And he almost certainly will. I don't think he would pass up this chance to become PM after all these years.

Oh yeah, and he is also anti-EU, and would like a Nexit.

Commentators have mentioned though, that this victory does not guarantee that he becomes PM, and there is precedent for majority parties not being in a coalition.

Exactly.

Hence why the NSC and VVD may find a coalition with the Left-Wing coalition and some others to be slightly more viable if the PVV refuses to compromise.

Less it means that the election is repeated months later.

Ugh, I really hate this result. Absolutely nothing good can come of it, except maybe that we get another election in a year or so.

I thought Wilders leads a fringe party (as in, fringe appeal with populist policies). Why the big success? Something has changed?

edit

As a possible answer to my own question, I found an interesting comment:

Being accepted by a major party as a potential partner may have helped him out here...

Edited by editerguy on Nov 23rd 2023 at 12:51:22 AM

A lot of voters from VVD switched to PVV.

Also note that "biggest" is still rather small here, with a projected 37 out of 150 seats. It's hardly the Republican party, and the right wing is hardly a united front.

Speaking of Republicans, all those foreign comparisons to Trump are frankly a bit silly and reductive. Wilders is not a billionaire who only cares for filling his own pockets; he at least seems to be a populist who genuinely wants to improve the lives of the poor and working class, even if he puts a racist spin on that. He is also by no means a political outsider; he is in fact one of the most senior politician around at this point, though perhaps not with the right experience to be PM. He is also not a president with a united (near) majority party behind him. He can't just start deporting people or anything, not without a serious coalition backing him, which is doubtful, to say the least. And he is not nearly as unhinged or incoherent as Trump; he is very intelligent and a skilled speaker and politician.

He's still bad, mind you, but I think we can call him bad without resorting to reductive comparisons to Trump that really don't make any sense in any but the most superficial ways (he's a blonde racist! okay...)

He hasn't been all that fringe for quite a while, actually. His party has been bigger than this in the past, in fact. You have to realize that our political scene is very fractured, and even the biggest parties are now on the small side.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 22nd 2023 at 8:41:13 PM

The one who first called him Dutch Trump on this page was you though.

Edited by M84 on Nov 23rd 2023 at 3:40:49 AM

I don't mean on here, M84, I mean in the foreign news media. I wasn't talking about you guys.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 22nd 2023 at 8:41:57 PM

Also, the fact he's a political insider with experience means he might be worse than Trump. Since that means he'll know how to get his policies enacted.

Or be pragmatic enough if the long-term of some policies will be non-viable.

He already stated he won't be pushing for anti-Islam policies like banning the Koran and stuff like that, even though that used to be one of his main talking points.

He'll be watering his ideology down significantly in order to actually govern. I'm mostly worried about him giving legitimacy to the idea of leaving the EU. Which would be absolutely catastrophic for our nation, because we benefit from it more than any other western-European state.

Edited by Kayeka on Nov 23rd 2023 at 9:08:29 PM

That's about the best you can hope for when someone like that becomes the head of government. Nothing good will happen, but less bad will happen too.

But yeah, the fact that there's a non-zero chance he might try his own Nexit referendum crap is not great.

Edited by M84 on Nov 24th 2023 at 4:10:23 AM

In a way it's worse, but he is also pragmatic enough to compromise. Again, this is not a situation where his party can simply force its hand by being an absolute majority.

From what I understand, he could be in a similar situation as Balkenende, should he become PM (Balkenende apparently also lacked certain experience going into the job, mostly on a technical level (how do you draft a motion, etc) ).

Try, yes. Succeed? Not very likely.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 23rd 2023 at 9:11:54 PM

That's what they said about Brexit as well, which is why the Tories made that gamble to begin with. They wanted to shut up all the "leaving" arguments by settling them once and for all, thinking that most people would prefer the status quo.

So, yah know, don't get too comfy.