Funny Commnet in Dutch About Trump
VENLO, Netherlands —
ong earlier Donald Trump upended the American political landscape, Geert Wilders was rewriting the electoral playbook in the Netherlands, stomping ruthlessly over convention and being rewarded with votes.
Not only are the ii men akin in their peculiar blond hairdos; they share a talent for using controversy to dominate the news cycle and a trend to forgo a hefty party apparatus in favor of a skeleton squad of campaign loyalists and social-media blitzkriegs.
Wilders admires Trump and encourages the comparison, delighted to cast his entrada as part of a global populist wave if it adds momentum alee of the March 15 vote, in which polls indicate his Liberty Party (PVV) is cervix-and-cervix with Prime Minister Mark Rutte'southward People'south Political party for Liberty and Republic (VVD).
"Information technology's the revenge of the rust belt," said Tim de Beer, an opinion and policy enquiry good at the Dutch polling business firm Kantar Public. "Holland was amongst the first to have this revolt."
But Trump and Wilders differ in important means. Trump'due south lack of focus is completely at odds with Wilders' singular, dogged decision to pursue his proclaimed mission: stop Islam in the Netherlands. And where Trump is a newcomer to politics, Wilders is i of the longest-serving lawmakers in the Dutch lower house, with a formidable control of parliamentary procedures.
A product of a turbulent period in Dutch politics, when assassinations roiled the country post-obit the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Wilders lives under 24-hour police force protection.
In recent years, his politics take become ever more radical, as his shock-mode anti-Muslim rhetoric drove upwards his share of support. Wilders has reshaped the political sphere in his ain image, extrapolating the threats on his person into a global peril, and dragging the Dutch eye basis to the correct.
Geert Wilders' outset political plough came in his early 20s when he found piece of work at the social insurance administration and was shocked past its dysfunction | Sander Koning/European Pressphoto Agency
LIMBURG LOYALISTS
ilders grew up in Venlo, a small edge city with Federal republic of germany shut to some of the poorest pockets of the Netherlands. Traditionally a hub of logistics and cantankerous-border commerce, legal and otherwise, Venlo lies in the centre of the Dutch "Catholic south" — poorer but, locals say, more fun-loving than the austere Calvinist reaches of the north.
Today, the street where Wilders grew up, an unassuming row of cherry-red-brick houses on the fringes of the boondocks, is festooned with the ruby-red, yellowish and blue flags of funfair, a riotous annual street party that is a linchpin of strong regional identity.
Wilders grew upwards the youngest, with a brother and two sisters. The family was Roman Cosmic, in tune with the conservative community effectually them, though Wilders is not religious. His male parent, who worked in a local company, was of former Limburg stock — the southernmost province of the Netherlands in which Venlo is establish.
Wilders frequently celebrates Limburg and Venlo — "the most beautiful province" and a "city of fun and pleasure" — in speeches and tweets. He relishes speaking Limburgian, a relative of German language and Dutch, and maintains a clique of Limburg loyalists who speak the dialect together, including a babyhood friend he brought with him from the onetime neighborhood to The Hague.
Wilders is generally silent about the other side of his family tree. His female parent was built-in in what is now Indonesia. She arrived in the netherlands as a babe later on her parents fled the collapsing Dutch colony that would later become the country with the world's largest Muslim population.
Wilders' grandmother never stopped missing the colonial globe she had left behind. Sometimes, on special occasions, dishes from "Tempo Doeloe" — the good sometime days — would be prepared.
"I remember 'rice tables,' nosotros called it," Wilders' older blood brother Paul, an angular man of 62 who runs an Information technology company, said over a loving cup of Earl Grey tea in a cafe in Utrecht, the urban center where he at present lives. "Well, it took two or three days. The tabular array was full of all sorts of food."
Erstwhile school writings by a 10-year-old Wilders unearthed by Dutch media reveal an early commanding tone. "On 7 January 1974 petrol is rationed," read the article in a school newspaper nigh the oil crisis. "Everyone must bide by this. Not only yous just … !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
His political turn came in his early on 20s when, subsequently completing his military service and studying at the Open Academy, he found piece of work at the social insurance administration, and was shocked by its dysfunction.
Information technology was the commencement of a life-long antipathy for Dutch bureaucracy and the tradition of the poldermodel — the consensus-based controlling that takes its name from the cooperation required to proceed the sea from flooding the depression-lying country.
"I experienced first-hand the degeneration of the poldermodel in full force," Wilders recalled in his 2005 autobiography of his years as a civil servant.
I nighttime in Wilders' apartment in Utrecht, he debated with his brother: Which political party he should join? He chose the VVD, the party of his current rival, Prime number Minister Rutte.
Wilders worked his way upwardly, writing material for the party leader, the clearing critic Frits Bolkestein and becoming a local councilor in Utrecht in 1997. He also noticed that a lot of Turkish immigrants seemed to live in his Utrecht neighborhood, Kanaaleiland. He didn't like the way it was changing.
In those early days in politics, Wilders transformed himself. He took media grooming classes, sharpening upwards his Limburg-accented spoken communication. He bleached his brown hair, a joke, according to i former friend, simply it got him such instant attention that he decided to go along it.
When he got elected to parliament in 1998 on the electoral list of the VVD, the toweringly tall blond caught the attention of the media and his colleagues in parliament.
His appearance wasn't the merely affair grabbing attention. Wilders quickly earned a reputation as a rebel who refused to toe the party line. (Some people are "married to the political party" he noted dismissively in his 2005 autobiography.)
"There are two Wilders. The guy in the camera lens, and the guy you sit with in his function, or in an plane or a eatery. That's a completely different person. He plays a part." | Bart Maat/ANP via Belga Prototype
TWO WILDERS
ilders was deeply suspicious of Islam long before three airplanes were flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in New York and Washington D.C. in 2001.
Before attention university, he traveled in the Center Eastward, visiting Arab republic of egypt, Syrian arab republic and Iran. Arriving in Israel in the early on 1980s as a teenager with a bohemian head of brown curls, he spent all of his money in a week, and concluded up picking peppers and melons in a Moshav in the Jordan valley. He stayed more than a year. It was the showtime of a life-long infatuation with the country he now sees as the frontier of a struggle between barbarism and civilization.
But it was 9/11 and its destabilizing effect on Dutch politics that gave his politics their defining shape. The attacks in the U.S. gave rise to a different type of politician. Pim Fortuyn, an openly gay conservative, shook upward Dutch politics with his outspoken views on immigration and Islam.
Sitting on the benches of the VVD, Wilders was frustrated at his party's restraint and inability to compete with the rising star. And when Fortuyn was assassinated by an environmentalist in 2002, Wilders picked up his drape. He became increasingly critical of Turkey'south bid for European Union membership. The country was a "Trojan horse," in his view, that didn't vest in the "Judeo-Christian" world.
The issue led to his final break with the VVD in 2004. Armed with a few paper-thin boxes from his one-time part, he set out to form his ain party.
Shortly afterward, a second bump-off rocked the Netherlands. Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker, was killed past a young Dutch Moroccan who said he was upset by the director'due south short film "Submission," which was critical of Islam. It was to exist a fork in the road for Wilders.
Two key things happened. Starting time, a former journalist named Martin Bosma came across the scene of the murder when he was out to buy breadstuff i morning time. The murder of van Gogh, Bosma writes in his autobiography, spurred his determination to join Wilders to build a new party from a small room in The Hague. He became Wilders' most valuable ally.
Second, police investigating the murder discovered the killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, also had designs on Wilders, and placed the immature parliamentarian nether police force protection. Since that appointment, November 4, 2004, Wilders has lived under 24-hour protection. Locked inside a security bubble, he cannot spontaneously go for a walk or easily attend public events.
Together, Bosma and Wilders created something like a "virtual" political party. It had no members beyond Wilders himself, and it forwent expensive headquarters, public funding and a conventional campaigning apparatus.
Geert Wilders, left, delivers a 2012 voice communication entitled "Their Brussels, our Netherlands" as Martin Bosma, center, and Fleur Agema look on in The Hague | Robin Utrecht/AFP via Getty Images
By chance likewise equally by necessity — threats to his life made information technology hard for Wilders to campaign conventionally — the two men were early on adopters of internet politicking. They ready websites and electronic mail lists and, when the moment arrived, moved chop-chop to harness social media.
Wilders soon figured out how to leverage his hunted status to cause drama and lend himself freedom-fighter brownie on the international anti-Islam alarmist lecture excursion. His 2005 autobiography was written from the prison house-like safe business firm where he lived for a time with his wife Krisztina, a Hungarian one-time diplomat, in the military complex Kamp Zeist outside of Utrecht.
He also learned how to dominate the news wheel from within prophylactic walls.
He became the consummate opposition politician, using his deep knowledge of parliamentary procedures to campaign from within the House of Representatives, and coaching protégés to exercise likewise. (Although resentment against elites is a founding characteristic of his politics, Wilders is himself an absolute insider. Only three lawmakers have been in parliament longer than his 6,694 days.)
Wilders severely restricts media access to the party. Attempts to contact it, or any of its lawmakers, are typically met with a wall of silence. This is combined with advisedly rationed pronouncements designed to outrage and catch headlines. Wilders specializes in coming up with insulting chemical compound words, such as straatterroristen ("street terrorists," or foreign-looking men hanging around); haatpaleizen ("hate palaces," or mosques); or his infamous kopvoddentaks proposal (a "head rag tax" on headscarves).
Twitter was a natural fit for Wilders, and it is now his primary venue for public comment. His election manifesto for 2017 was posted as a single, ane-page image on Facebook and Twitter, simply its proposals — shut all mosques, ban the Quran — were reported internationally, unlike the largely ignored tomes of his rivals.
Over the course of Wilders' life under armed protection, his views take become increasingly radical, casting Islam and the West as ancient enemies locked in a civilizational war for survival. In 2005, his manifesto immune that not all Muslims were unsafe, noted the importance of freedom of religion, and advocated that only radical mosques should be closed. Present, he claims there are no moderate Muslims, just liars, or people who haven't read the Quran.
"His driving force is the idea that the culture as we know it in Europe and Kingdom of the netherlands should exist saved from Islam," Geert Tomlow, a former party candidate and friend, said.
To pursue this mission, colleagues say Wilders created a steely public persona that contrasts securely with his private person.
"There are two Wilders," said old PVV lawmaker Wim Kortenoeven. "The guy in the photographic camera lens, and the guy you sit with in his part, or in an airplane or a restaurant. That's a completely unlike person. He plays a part."
The private Wilders — a man with a mischievous sense of sense of humour, and doubts and insecurities he never displays in public — is increasingly rarely glimpsed, co-ordinate to those who know him.
Underlining Wilders' sense of peril, a member of his security squad was recently suspended on suspicion of leaking details to a criminal arrangement. "He has an anxiety trouble with new people and new faces. He has a lot of trust issues. You lot don't reach him anymore," Tomlow said.
An uncanny ability for verbal recollect, which has made him an splendid mock interviewer when training new lawmakers for parliament, means he is not a man who forgets a slight.
"He has this difficult deejay in his heed, and he really remembers everything you exercise and say," Tomlow said. "Every nuance, every comma."
Geert Wilders' brother Paul, in his home urban center of Utrecht in the Netherlands | Naomi O'Leary for POLITICO
A DANGEROUS GAME
s the elections draw closer, a large graffiti message in black and white was painted across on a railway span outside Wilders' hometown of Venlo.
"How, Geert?" it read, a reference to criticism that Wilders' promise to brand holland "ours once again" is not backed upwardly by concrete policies.
Locals in Wilders' old neighborhood echoed the sentiment, several saying that while they may concur with his arguments, they wouldn't back a man with a one-page programme for government.
"I don't know who to vote for but I certainly won't be voting for him," said Ans Stals, a woman with thick-rimmed glasses, aged 55. "He doesn't ready out clearly what he will practise."
Jannes van Dijk, a 19-year-former first-fourth dimension voter attending a nearby school, said the Freedom Party would not get his vote although he agreed with Wilders on many things.
"Foreigners come hither and they don't work. We take to pay for them and they just sit on the burrow, that's the problem," van Dijk said. "I agree with him on that, merely there are more politicians that think that. He but gets the attending."
And there is ane voter Wilders is certainly not winning over: his older blood brother, Paul.
"I don't vote for my brother because I practise believe he is playing a unsafe game," he said. "His primary scapegoat is Muslims. What he's aiming at is from my point of view just political power."
It was during Wilders' early years in parliament with the VVD, around the turn of the century, that Paul first felt he needed to talk to his brother about his political views.
"I noticed the start of a certain narrow-mindedness, which I believed could well turn out to be serious. And indeed it did," said Paul.
It wasn't a confrontation. Paul probed his blood brother with questions, saying he wanted to amend sympathise his reasoning. "In the showtime, he was sort of open to at to the lowest degree talk over," he said. "It didn't aid that much, because he'south a strong-headed man."
Since then, in his brother's view, Wilders has pursued an increasingly lonely, sorry and dangerous path. The last straw for Paul came when Wilders posted a photograph of a bloodied German Chancellor Angela Merkel subsequently a terrorist set on on a Berlin Christmas market killed 12 in December.
He took to Twitter to apologize.
"Inappreciably ever tweet. Sincere apologies for my brothers' @geertwilderspvv behaviour and tweets," he wrote.
pic.twitter.com/drbYbGGxg8
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) Dec 20, 2016
Hardly ever tweet.Sincere apologies for my brothers' @geertwilderspvv behaviour and https://t.co/r5TGw3i3uq equally you please! #pvv #wilders pic.twitter.com/MQqURqOj5P
— Paul Wilders (@paul_wilders) Dec 21, 2016
His protest has come at a price.
"Either you're with him or if you're non. If yous practice criticize him, you're out. Instead of making the distinction betwixt the man and his ideas, he cut me off. Twitter, whatever, yous name it, there's no way for me to contact him," Paul said.
He decided to speak out ahead of the ballot because he fears his blood brother's rhetoric could lead to violent social unrest.
"My brother has said, in case me and my voters don't get what nosotros want — that'southward a free translation — there could well be a revolution," he said. "That'southward similar putting out a fire with gasoline."
Political tension is something Paul is familiar with. For more a decade, he and his family have endured death threats. Previously, these came mostly from Muslims, according to Paul. Now, well-nigh make it from hardline Wilders supporters who know of Paul'south views.
There is more opposition in the family. Paul is confident that his mother, now in her mid-80s, won't exist casting her ballot for her son. "I'm pretty sure my mother has not and will never vote for my brother or his party," he said.
Geert Wilders on Washington's Capitol Hill in 2015 | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
THE CHURCHILL OF HOLLAND
he Freedom Party is a strangely hollow performance. It barely features in municipal or regional politics, despite consistently topping opinion polls, mostly considering it lacks organizing power and suffers a dearth of suitable candidates.
Being a public figure within the Liberty Party comes with a social toll due the party's divisive positions and the prospect of danger from Islamic extremists. Wilders abased an attempt to submit candidates to run for local government in his native Venlo in 2009 due to a lack of suitable options.
His party has been rocked past a number of defections and scandals: One lawmaker was arrested for getting into a brawl; another was accused of threatening to urinate in the letterbox of a neighbor.
Wilders has as well alienated staff with an autocratic leadership manner that, in the view of several defectors, limits the party from reaching its full potential.
Former colleagues describe him as a workaholic who demands the aforementioned dedication from those effectually him. Colleagues on holiday with their families, even as far as a transatlantic flying away, fear the call that forces them to return for an ordinary party meeting. Ii party employees are currently suing for overwork.
"He believes he is the Churchill of Holland," said Tomlow. "He believes he tin save Holland."
However ultimately, the biggest barrier to Wilders becoming prime minister may be Wilders himself.
His idiosyncratic leadership mode is a weakness in the fragmented Dutch political landscape, which requires multiple parties to band together and talk over circuitous programs to form a authorities. A series of political rivals accept ruled out working with him.
Only in other means, Wilders has already won.
"Mainstream parties have shifted to the right," said Matthijs Rooduijn, a political sociologist at Utrecht University. "He has changed Dutch politics."
Rutte, the prime minister, has imitated Wilders' rhetoric on immigration and multiculturalism throughout the campaign. And a constellation of modest parties offer voters a sanitized version of Wilders' Euroskeptic, low-tax, tough-borders program.
If the Freedom Party underperforms in the election compared to polls, as it has in the past, there will be a crowd of hopeful successors, waiting for Wilders to call it a mean solar day and retire to work the lecture circuit in the United states.
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Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-man-who-invented-trumpism-geert-wilders-netherlands-pvv-vvd-populist/
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