Thierry Baudet: The new face of the euroskeptic Dutch right

Thierry Baudet has emerged as the leading anti-immigration and euroskeptic voice in the Netherlands. His party's first place finish in local elections has shaken Dutch politics.

An upstart right-wing populist party has surged to the forefront in Dutch provincial elections, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Mark Rutte's four-party coalition.

Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy (FvD) emerged as the top winner in local elections on Wednesday, taking 14 percent of the national vote. The elections determine the makeup of the Senate.

In the fragmented Dutch political system, where more than a dozen parties won seats, that relatively small proportion of the electorate was enough to put the FvD on top, with 13 seats in the 75-member upper house of the legislature.

Rutte's center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) won 12 seats. His four-party coalition's representation fell from 38 to 31, meaning it will have to look for new allies for support.

Baudet took votes from three of the four parties that make up Rutte's ruling coalition, as well as from the anti-Islam Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) and the left-wing Socialist Party.

In one of his books, Oikophobia: The Fear of Home, Baudet laments cultural relativism and multiculturalism, which, he writes, lead to loathing of one's own culture. In another book, Break the Party Cartel, he describes the Dutch political class as a cartel.

"We stand here in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilization," Baudet said in his victory speech, using classical references.

"We are going to start a renaissance in which our self-confidence is restored, in which we can live safely in a trusted environment, in which the democratic state is repaired and economic and cultural dynamism can return," he said.

Word is that he is a conservative with wider appeal than Geert Wilders, who represents a different party. There are youtube videos of him voicing his ideals in fluent English.

Additional points from Wikipedia:

"Baudet was born in Heemstede to a family of partial Walloon and Indonesian ancestry."

"Baudet is a eurosceptic and opposed to multiculturalism. Baudet is an advocate for a return to nation states. In 2014 he gave a speech at the Flemish nationalist event IJzerwake. He also spoke at several Vlaams Belang conferences. Baudet has stated that his conservative political convictions have been largely influenced by two events in his first year as a history undergraduate in Amsterdam: the September 11 attacks and the assassination of Pim Fortuyn."

"Baudet frequently speaks about the perceived existence of a "party cartel", in which the main ruling parties of the country divide power among themselves and conspire towards the same goals, despite claiming to be competitors. Baudet is not religious, but he is sympathetic with Christian values. In an interview, he called himself an "agnostic cultural Christian."

"Baudet is an adherent of the 'Cultural Marxism' conspiracy theory, that suggests a calculated effort to destroy western culture by academic and intellectual means. This is supposedly achieved through multiculturalism, political correctness and tolerance towards homosexuality and trans-sexuality. Baudet accuses the European Union of being 'a Cultural Marxist project, with the aim of destroying European Civilization'."

Let’s applaud this but let’s keep in mind that his win, though “first place” was actually only 14 percent of the national vote. That kind of “first place” win happens in the very fractured politics of the Netherlands with 32 different parties and 14 of them represented in the national government.

To govern the national government, Baudet will have to get a coalition of parties to join him into making a governing majority. If he were unable to get a large enough coalition, someone else would be asked to try.

The U.S. actually has a political fragmentation just as the Netherlands, but it has been submerged for most of U.S. history by, and within, just a few major parties.

Both the American “Conservatives” and “Liberals” are not uniform within those respective labels and have a spectrum of adherents with non-universal opinions on a range of subjects.

But somehow most Americans have been able to accept that their own preferred party is not “pure”, but merely comprises those they would agree with more often than disagree with.

While in the Netherlands each subgroup prefers to try to represent itself.

In a sarcastic quasi “religious” sense, you could call American politics more “catholic” and Netherlands politics more “protestant”. With the former preferring a more “universalist” approach and the later a more “independent” one.

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