Why Geert Wilders is not Donald Trump
The hair and tan notwithstanding
The foreign press repeatedly referred to Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), as the “Dutch Trump” after he won 37 seats in this week's elections. Wilders and Trump may look alike and have some ideological similarities, but they are operating in different political systems with completely different incentives. Wilders will ascend if he acts more normal (normaal). Trump will win if he acts more insane.
Wilders has been in the House of Representatives since 1998. He is anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-EU (and pro-Nexit, Dutch Brexit), anti-support for Ukraine. He wants to defund all arts and culture programs, withdraw from climate agreements, stop all foreign aid. In 2020, he was found guilty of insulting Moroccans in a speech. “Do you want more or less Moroccans in the Netherlands,” he asked. “Less,” the crowd chanted. “We can arrange that,” he said. He wants to try 14 year-olds as adults and eliminate community service as punishment for misdemeanors. In the past he has called for a ban on the Quran, mosques, Islamic schools, and headscarves in government buildings.
What’s all this about Islam? The culture wars have shifted to the anti-woke issues of the moment, like transgender care and pedophile conspiracy theories. Maybe Wilders is the last man on earth still trying to legally ban headscarves, but there’s a reason he can’t let it go. His views were born out of the Dutch post-9/11 era, in particular, the murders of anti-Islam politician Pim Fortyun in 2002, and anti-Islam filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 by an associate of a radical Islamist group.
Wilders was on the “kill list” of the same organization that murdered Van Gogh. He was placed under 24/7 police surveillance the day of Van Gogh’s murder, which remains in place to this day.
Ranting and fear-mongering about Islam and asylum seekers for the last twenty years has gotten him somewhere; he has the most solid anti-immigration brand in the country.
In what’s starting to be seen as one of the fundamental, defining mistakes of this year’s campaign, VVD (former prime minister Mark Rutte’s party) leader Dilan Yesilgöz opened the door for a collaboration on immigration with Wilders. “I have to see what Mr Wilders comes up with,” she said, in September, wanting to pull the VVD to the right, and benefit from affiliation with the PVV’s hard line on immigration.
But her move backfired. Attention from the VVD legitimized Wilders, which had been polling around seven percent since the spring. In turn Wilders moderated himself on paper, and on television. He chilled out. In a party platform released in September, Wilders removed the call for a Ministry of Remigration and De-Islamization, a passage calling Islam as “a totalitarian ideology,” and removed the call to ban political office for people who hold double passports—like Yesilgöz. He appeared on Nieuwsuur and in de Volkskrant, which he previously designated as members of ‘left-wing hate media,’ presenting himself as a moderate democrat, and out-performing his staid centrist competitors with a far more dynamic style of showmanship.
Donald Trump skips out on Republican debates and gives speeches talking like an absolute lunatic (see the video above) to speak exclusively to his base—the people who will vote for him no matter what. His job is to entertain them, and fire them up, enough so they turn out to vote for him election day. That’s pretty much the entire game.
Of course, Wilders also has a base (probably that seven percent which stuck with him over the summer), but these people, contrary to Trump, are the last people that matter now. On the contrary, if Wilders has any shot at becoming prime minister (and it it is still completely unclear if this is possible) he needs to build a coalition, which means moderating himself to the degree that other parties might join up with him, even if they have to do so while holding their noses.
Wilders is incentivized moderate his views, or at least pretend like he is, whereas Trump is incentivized to deliver comedic rants about how windmills and whales.
You can’t get anywhere in the Dutch system if you don’t compromise (or pretend to). You can’t get anywhere in the American system if you do.
*all typos in this post are on purpose
"Wilders will ascend if he acts more normal (normaal). Trump will win if he acts more insane."
such a good point!
Technically Wilders has been in parliament since 1998 (first four years for the VVD). Otherwise good analysis.