121
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] boredtortoise@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm no expert and don't see any clear solution to this problem.

  • Lie-based populism will always have an edge to the truth as fact-checking is always late and with a lesser impact.
  • Education can't keep up and it's actively made worse.
  • Countries can't take voting rights away from the easily manipulated.

There might be some other avenues I can't think of right now but it seems that democracies might need some kinds of qualifications to be electable.

In Finland a minister is required to be "known to be honest and skillful" but that is not enforced in any way and our speaker of the parliament is a clone of Geert Wilders

[-] iain@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago

I'm afraid of this becoming a slippery slope. Suffrage (both active and passive) are very important rights that should never be infringed.

You can see the slippery slope in action in America: mass incarceration is being used as a way to take away voting rights from black people. Any loop hole will always be used by the people in power to remain in power.

It's not hard to predict that the right would classify "socialism" as "lying about the economy" and try to take suffrage away from socialists, or whatever they consider socialists that day.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

... mass incarceration is being used as a way to take away voting rights from black people.

So you're saying they're arresting black citizens specifically to take away their voting rights?

[-] boredtortoise@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I'm not the one you're quoting but that seems to be a sought-after side effect. War on drugs was specifically aimed to incarcerate low-income minorities

this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
121 points (98.4% liked)

World News

39129 readers
681 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS