Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

The danger there is presumably that Wilders will be leader of the opposition?

Nope, we don't have opposition leaders in our system. Sure, he will be opposition and will be loud, but he's been like that for the past six years tbh.

We don't have one oppo leader I mean, like in other countries.

He'll be the largest though, might that not confer some legitimacy on him?

I realise that I'm speaking from ignorance - is there much history of criticism of policies from inside coalitions? I guess what I'm worried about is that he'll get to say "This is terrible, my untried alternative would be better" on any government policy that people don't like until the next election.

I can see where you're coming from, but the latter is what he's tried to do for the last couple of years. To no avail. Ban the quran, close all mosques, exit out of EU, deport "criminal moroccans". All these untried alternatives will remain untried. He'll ofcourse have some legitimacy, but he'll be one of many (could run up to as much as 12 parties) opposition parties.

Seeing that his party's not gotten any bigger the last six, seven years (not losing a lot, but not gaining either... fingers crossed for tonight) keeps him pretty contained. No doubt this country is getting more and more rightwing though.

(there'll likely be one or two small, new parties, closest to alt-right as we've known here, nibbling off some seats from Wilders, too)

Fingers crossed that Trump might just be the beginning of the end for these right wing populist clowns.

Otm. Unexpectedly anxious/excited abt tonight.

Don't want to make you more anxious, make you think more about it, but can you give us a few signposts/things to look out for?

1. How big will Wilders be? He's got 15 seats now, and will likely get 25-27. Which sucks. If he gets less, he'll celebrate the won seats but it's not enough to boast about tbh. If he pulls a trump and becomes the biggest party the apocalypse will commence.
2. Tories (VVD) will likely be biggest, but lose some seats to PVV. If Rutte can get a margin of 5 or more seats opposed to Wilders, he'll be considered to have done reasonably well and fended off Wilders.
3. Most interesting will be the four parties after those two: D66 (Libdem), CDA (chr dems), GreenLeft, Socialist Party could all get between 15-30 seats, and are sitting around 20 in the polls. The Tories will prob need three of these to form a coalition. If D66 and GreenLeft do as good as projected, it could be a centred coalition with a hint of green (which, given the limited possibilities in this fractured landscape, I would applaud).
4. Labour will be decimated tonight. Whether they get 13 or as low as 8 seats (38 now), they're being destroyed which is quite a big thing for Dutch politics.
5. How many seats do the small/new parties scoop up? It won't matter a whole lot for coalition etc but it's interesting to see how many seats parties like FvD (alt-right'ish) could get. Party of the Animals, Pirate Party etc. The fucking elderly party.
6. And then there's Denk. This will be significant. Two ex Labour mps with a Turkish background campaign as the first party for immigrants. They also are very much behind Erdogan, which - given the row Hollands in with that bastard - is controversial. If they scoop up 5 or 6 seats that's still quite a big signal tho.
7. TL;dr let's hope Wilders won't be too big, but regardless, we'll have a center'ish coalition like we always do.

Exit poll at 21 CET usually gives a pretty accurate view of the results.

Thanks! Forgive me for asking all these questions, and just ignore me if you want to, but the coverage of the election has been pretty pitiful in Denmark. But I see on wikipedia that Wilders won 24 seats in the 2010 election, so he will more or less be back where he was before 2012? Is the Labour collapse perhaps the real story, and are there any big reasons for it, or is it the by now fairly typical faith of a minority coalition partner that we've also seen with the Lib Dems, the FDP in Germany, etc?

What happens if he becomes the biggest? In Denmark, we are currently ruled by the third-biggest party, because they were the ones who could form a coalition, but would it be different for you guys?

Fingers crossed that Trump might just be the beginning of the end for these right wing populist clowns.
― Return of the Flustered Bootle Native (Tom D.)

"Alternative für Deutschland" sounded fresh and modern before Kellyanne Conway. Now, not so much.

Nae mind, Fred! You are correct, last time he plummeted from 24 to 15, so he would be at his old level. This would mean he gained some traction after the refugee crisis but not more than he previously had.
If he does become the biggest party (which would cost his most likely coalition partner VVD seats), he'd be unable to reach 76 seats without a third or even fourth party. All big parties have already ruled out forming a gov with Wilders, due to either being let down in 2012 or simply because he's a racist moron. Even if the VVD reconsider (I wouldn't put it past those bastards) they're not there yet: it's nigh on impossible, and after failing to form a gov other parties will try so, behind his back or not. Which is fair, too. So that's the same as in Denmark I think.
However, him being biggest or winning a lot is still highly problematic obv. It's not a country I want to wake up in tomorrow.

Labour collapsing just isn't a surprise anymore to be a big story. They suffer for ruling with the Tories. The Green Party, Socialists, and even LibDems probably benefit from it. The real leftie Labour voters feel they aren't left enough any more (which is true). Like in the UK it's a party deep in identity crisis tbh.

Real story is prob twofold: will Wilders rise be contained/turn out not be as big, and will the center and left parties (excluding Labour) win big? If that happens it's a reasonably good outcome imho, which will provide a fairly stable, center with a dash of green gov. If Wilders is hot on the Tories heels though, or even become biggest, it will suck big time.

Turnout is crazy high, but no one dares to project what that means for the result.

Turnout is crazy high

Populists will do well then, surely? Unfortunately.

xp What do you foresee would be the consequences of Wilders' becoming the biggest party assuming that you are correct that he would be unable to form a government?

I think partly yes, and partly previously uninterested voters (people with migrant backgrounds). There's also been loads of initiatives by celebs etc to get the 800,000 youths who can vote for the first time to the polling stations. I've no idea tbh. Xp

Mordy: then his hatred driven narrative will dominate the nation for four years again. You would not believe the amount of 'who are Wilders voters and what are they like?!' Thinkpiece sand long reads we've had over the last couple of months, even by the most progressive media. It's excruciating, this normalization of bigotry and racism. As I said, the conservatives, Christian democrats etc, they all adapted his repertoire to appeal to voters leaning towards Wilders. So he may not be prime minister, he's already leaving his mark. Which is a shit stain tbh.

As an opposition party, all he has done up to now is shout racist nonsense, create tension and chaos. If he is the biggest party, his megaphone will be even louder. Don't underestimate his power of division: having someone on the news every night hammering home that people with Turkish or Moroccan descent (his scapegoats), Muslims, do not belong here, leaves deep scars. Even with those able to see his political role realistically, friends of mine. It's poisonous.

EXIT POLL

VVD 31 seats
PVV/Wilders 19
CDA/ChrDems 19
D66/LibDem 19
GreenLeft 16
SocialistParty 14
Labour 9

Whoa... This is p huge. Wilders nowhere near a big win.

nice

Yeah this is - despite obv 13% for Wilders being too much - really, really great news. He hardly won. Center parties like Green and LibDem profiting from Labour collapse (those could've also gone to Wilders/right wing, but that doesn't seem to be the case).

Green Party from 4 to 16 seats!

i don't know how good your exit polls are but in light of the last couple of years i'd hold on for a little why before busting out the champagne

Even tho misery loves company I hope the exit polls are right. They were way off in Clinton/Trump and, iirc, Brexit.

xp jinx

iirc it was our 2015 general election where the exit poll called it wrong, i seem to remember there not being an official Brexit Exit Poll

i'd like to imagine PR makes exit polls more likely to be accurate than the fucked-up vagaries of the UK and US systems

The exit poll in the 2015 election pointed to a Tory majority - I remember the alert popping up on my phone in a pub toilet and immediately wanting to throw up.

Our exit polls are usually fairly accurate, but trust me, I'm not celebrating yet. I cant ever celebrate because Tories still rule this country but... Wilders not as big as projected, nowhere near, at least give me that to be pleased about guys. Give me something, I don't ask for a lot tbh.

think maybe the 2015 poll called a wafer-thin majority compared to how it played out?

It's still a reasonably thin majority but yeah a similar error here in Wilders' favour would not be good.

Well, apparently a bad result for populists in Australia as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/03/15/australia-just-delivered-a-blow-to-its-far-right-populists-heres-how-we-did-it/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.05eb2dcdb262

Any Australians who can elaborate?

Re: the 2015 exit poll - all the major polls running up were pointing towards a hung parliament but the first exit poll that came out at 10pm that night predicted a Tory majority, and it was correct.

lol Pauline Hanson is a running joke, she never had a chance.

Already entirely sick of all the triumphant 'populism was defeated!1!' headlines. Populism wasn't defeated, it's been wholly adopted by the mainstream parties.

So the system works?

I suppose.

Freddy B, hats off for the Danish newsreaders presenting a whole item in Dutch!

Lol. Danish people love Dutch, as it's a common held opinion that it's the only language in the world uglier than ours...

Sorry...

This guy seriously looks like a Willy Wonka wannabe:
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/842366245093707777/3LF-CSXO?format=jpg&name=600x314

Or a last-minute Jimmy Page costume:
http://noisecreep.com/files/2014/01/Jimmy-Page.jpg

Starting to really believe that if the Brexit referendum had happened after Trump, the results would have been different.

Of which?

I really dunno about that. Brexit and Trump are lumped in together a lot in the media and amongst Remainers, but I don't know if many Leavers make the association (even with Farage advising Trump and etc.)

It is probably a wash between 'the world is becoming more chaotic so we need the stability of old alliances' and 'the world is becoming more chaotic so we need the freedom and flexibility to create new alliances' depending on your existing biases.

We are about to hand a massive majority to a leader promising a much more extreme version of Brexit than was ever hinted at - on the assumption that she can work out a sweet deal with Trump.

For much of last year, even the UKIP people who too regularly appear on QUESTION TIME would respond to questions about Trump by saying they disagreed with him and wouldn't vote for him if they were American.

I suppose this implies that for them, Brexit was much less extreme than Trump.

Also they knew that even their own supporters regarded Trump as a disaster.

I was thinking that if Trump had won already, the voters who were soft on Brexit but showed up just to vote Leave out of spite might have chosen otherwise. I think Trump's win seems to have been an effective warning to moderates to turn out and vote for the sane option. Swinging the result two points in the other direction doesn't seem improbable.

Of all the causes of the vote for leave in the referendum (of which there were many), I don't think what is or was happening in the US was very high up the list, and I don't think a change to the chronology would have made much of a difference to the result of the vote.

Nor do I think Trump/Brexit had much to do with yesterday's French election. Neither of those results has had enough impact *yet* to persuade/dissuade voters concerned with, for instance, immigration.

It's impossible to say for certain of course but it's entirely possible that Trump's massive, world-famous incompetence at being president has taken the wind out of the sails of some of the people who think their country needs a fascist outsider to "shake things up a bit"

yeah our fascist outsider should be enough to shake things up a bit for everyone, for at least a while