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.

  • Cosmicomical@kbin.social
    24·
    11 months ago

    Who does nothing breaks nothing. Don’t be so hard on the left wing parties. Progress requires experimentation, it isn’t always a easy to figure out all the ramifications of a new policy.

    • rambaroo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      11 months ago

      Neolibs aren’t leftists and they don’t experiment, unless it’s to find a new way to steal from us and give to the rich.

        • sunbytes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Neoliberal is good enough for Chomsky.

          I’d say they’d prefer to be called Capitalists, Conservatives (or even Centrists, weirdly)

          • boredtortoise@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            Yeah true it’s weird that a linguistic expert like Chomsky kind of submits to such manipulation of language

      • Cosmicomical@kbin.social
        1·
        11 months ago

        I’m well aware of that, and far from defending neoliberals. I seriously can’t reconstruct my thought process when i posted this, sorry. But I was defending actual leftists, i wasn’t trying to represent neolibs as leftists. Any chance the original post was edited? Or maybe I just misunderstood something.