Next one down, France to go. Wilders stays far away from power. Nor a crushing defeat but good enough. France will be tense. LePen will most certainly make it to the second round. But still it's 2:0 against right wing populism in the 2017 season. The 0:2 last year seems to have hit a nerve. Wake up calls? Too soon to tell but Brexit and Trump did not go unnoticed.
19-20 seats is a decent showing. Pretty much in line with election polls. That is pretty good for a guy who couldn't even campaign because of death threats from violent Islamic animals. Still in the last month he fell about a third in the polls largely due to fake media demonization. It is worth noting Germany is pushing ahead with censorship and that is far more worrying then a guy who wants to control immigration from alien cultures with incompatible values.
Also I note the ruling VVD had to change course and run far to the right of where they previously have been. That is a welcome change even if only an idiot would believe their sudden election time conversion to common sense. Still, it might mean some positive changes especially if a creditable populist threat remains to pressure them into doing the right thing.
If Le Pen doesn't make it to the second round, I'll eat my hat (for joy). It is extremely difficult to imagine her not making it. Why do you say "it's 2:0 against right wing populism in the 2017 season"? What have I missed? Wilders was a long shot, though a scary one all the same. I think Le Pen has a very good chance of winning the presidency. That's why I hope Emmanuel Macron makes it into the second round with her, since I think he has the best chance of beating her. God willing, Fillon's goose is cooked. And Manuel Valls should be strung up by his, well, his Valls ... I doubt that Macron would be anything better than a French Tony Blair. But consider the alternative.
I want to see Le Pen win just so the Eurocrats shit themselves as their dreams of forcing an undemocratic and unresponsive elite new order down the throats of the people comes crashing down. The pop corn will just be so buttery good while watching that one. To bad it is a long shot.
Christ, there you go again. Forcing it down their throats --- pshaw!! And you who have a president who lost the vote by three milllion. Sheeeeit.
Dunno. But most European countries have quite a few, which I think is a healthy thing because it makes coalition-forming and compromise indispensable. The real question is why the US has only two. Only Two! (And they aren't that far apart, either.)
Funny how you're against populism when it comes to the US popular vote. Of course, that's because your bigoted crap about Muslims just ain't that popular.
Yes, I know. But I think it's mistaken because this isn't happening in the UK or Canada or other countries that have had first-past-the-post for at least a century and a half. That said, far be it from me to defend first-past-the-post, which is moronically undemocratic and regularly hands power to a party with well less than half the votes. As with Trump. That bonehead Stephen Harper -- Justin Trudeau's predecessor as Canadian PM -- also won at least one election by benefiting form a "perfect storm". One thing that Trudeau promised (but I strongly doubt will be acted on) is electoral reform in Canada, which is badly needed. In other words, do away with first-past-the-post.
No, the American obsession with binary thinking explains that. Us vs them. Ironically, the only area you like more than two choices are ice cream flavours. If we relabelled the GOP as plain vanilla and the DNC as bitter lemon, you might explore rum and raisin.
Anyway, getting back to Wilders, if only for a sec, he may not have won, but he certainly did very well. The correspondent for Swiss TV was saying on the news this evening that "Islam" now arises in practically any political conversation you have in the Netherlands. She said she'd been interviewing the spokesman for the animal-rights party (speaking of dinky parties) and the first point raised by this guy -- to her astonishment -- was that halal is cruel to animals. I fully agree that halal is cruel, but her point was that the issue now permeates political discourse, whether Wilders actually won or not.
