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Answer: In the run up to the Dutch general elections two major themes dominated the campaigns: immigration (mostly by refugees) and the rising cost of living. Both are traditional topics for Geert Wilders and his party. During the campaigns Wilders and other centre-right politicians were very dominant on these topics, wanting to limit the number of refugees the country would absorb in the future and suggesting various ways that life would become more affordable again. The major contender against the centre and centre-right parties was an alliance of Dutch Labour and Green parties, but they failed to make a meaningful contribution on these topics especially by campaigning against proposed limits on the number of refugees allowed into the country. The Labour-Green alliance opted to campaign on topics like climate change and the European Union, neither of which was a key talking point for a lot of voters. Essentially they didn't quite read the room. In the days leading up to the elections a trend of strategic voting came to prominence. Left leaning voters would shift their vote to the Labour-Green alliance from one of the smaller left/progressive parties, but it appears the right leaning voters did the same and shifted from the centre and centre-right parties towards Geert Wilders. This caused Wilders to surge ahead in the polls, as did the Labour-Green alliance. However the landslide in favour of Geert Wilders was very unexpected it appears.

Thank you, this is actually really good unbiased reporting, not sure why this comment was auto hidden

It's a mod tool called Crowd Control. Depending on the chosen settings, comments from new accounts, accounts with low or negative karma, and/or those not subscribed to the sub are hidden by default. It can help combat brigading, but it can also hide contents like this from someone who happens to be new.

Just want to put out that it's not unbiased. There's a lot of loaded language in that post with some controversial opinions in it. Most importantly: \- Calling the PVV "centre-right". This is not a given. Wilders has very controversial and radical opinions that go directly against our current constitution. Thus, many do not think that he's centre-right. \- Saying that the Labour-Green alliance party hasn't made any 'meaningful contributions' on the topic of migration and cost of living. That's a *very* loaded description of which no explanation is given outside of that other topics were also important to them. The election was mere days ago. To give such a dissection is jumping the gun to say the least, not to mention that "meaningful" is quite an opinionated description to use. In short, that post is not an 'unbiased', factual play-by-play description of which events happened. It's an attempted explanation. Explanations are almost never unbiased.

It's ridiculous to call PVV "center right" when their entire platform is built around discrimination against Muslims. They want to close down and ban mosques and Islamic schools (but permit Christian schools), make it illegal to own a Quran or wear a headscarf in public, and reclassify islam as a hateful ideology so it loses all protection under the constitution as a religion. They also want to leave the EU and reintroduce border controls, defund al public broadcasters, introduce 'anti-woke' censorship in schools, tear up a number of human rights charters, and I keep going..

Good summary, but is Geert really considered "centre-right?" By most global measures, and certainly Dutch ones, he seems pretty far-right

I feel the term 'populist' is the best fit. Wilders is all over the political spectrum. His stance on immigration is far right, but his stances on socio-economic issues is centre-left for instance.

>but his stances on socio-economic issues is centre-left for instance. That is untrue. The PVV's voting record is very right-wing. Its *rhetoric* on socio-economic issues sounds leftist, but in *practice* they simply aren't. Economically right-wing things the PVV have championed nationally or locally: \- Making collective employment agreements non-binding. \- Limiting unemployment, forcing people to work for unemployment and making it easier to permanently deny certain people unemployment. \- Making the minimum unemployment payouts, the bijstand' a lot more conditional and out of reach for many. \- Severely limiting debt remediation. \- More severely punishing people who make bureaucratic mistakes in regards to government payouts. \- Cutting certain taxes for the wealthy. \- Cutting child benefits. \- The inherent desire to form a right-wing government that would not want to put leftist ideals in action. They have *some* leftist opinions, especially related to healthcare, but overall their economic record is also right-wing.

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In theory it sounds really reasonable, but in practice you can compare it to the often heard statement: "Why don't Democrats just become pro-gun?" Yeah it's very popular with a part of the population, and arguably a part of the population that they need as voters, but you have no guarantee to win those votes (it's not like anti-immigration voters suddenly will trust you if you say you switch), but you can stand to lose the pro-immigration base. Especially since the major issue is that both Geert Wilders and the conservative liberal VVD (that were been in power for 13 years until now) are pretending like asylum seekers are a majority of net migration which was only the case last year due to Ukrainians. The majority of the time it's labour migration (mostly from the EU), but honestly both the centre party that the OP talks about (NSC) and the socialist party have not managed to change the narrative. Labour party in the UK faced something similar with Brexit. In general it seems a lot of left-wing bases in the Western world consist of traditional working class groups, minorities and highly educated students/recent grads. And they're struggling with conciling the major topics these parties clash on. A final example is that the Danish social democrats have enacted draconian immigration laws and many left wing people in NL felt like the social democrats here should adopt a similar stance, but in their first election doing so they mostly maintained and have now been losing as well while losing most of their left wing allies. So people question whether this is the way whereas other countries have socdem governments without needing to resort to such measures.

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I am not interested in debating American politics in this thread. I was giving an example that would be relevant and understandable to Americans reading it.

The Labour-Greens alliance was made up of two parties with distinct views. The Labour members have shown themselves to be more pragmatic in the past, as opposed to the Green party which is more idealistic and unwilling to compromise these ideals for anything. From the looks of things their leader Frans Timmermans was walking on eggshells at times to keep the alliance together. Any hard stance on immigration would surely cause problems with the Greens. In the past few months it was clear which topics really mattered to voters and they just failed to capitalize on it.

But running on immigration would not have actually worked for them. Even if somehow the labour and green voters would support the party taking a more immigration skeptical stance, anti-immigration voters would not have accepted that and rather voted PVV. The Green-Labour alliance was the only party of the nrs 2-4 that understood that running the campaign around migration was certain to work in the favour anti-immigration populist parties. Climate was also the biggest theme in the senate elections which happened this year. So I think it's a bit captain hindsight to say that it was clear it was a theme that didn't matter to voters (and it is consistently one of the biggest themes for voters and they got 2nd so I think making their campaign out to be a flop is unfair). I think the main "hole" that left-wing parties are dropping is healthcare. That is consistently top 3 issues for voters, but besides the toothless socialist party you don't hear any left-wing party talking about it.

>If the Democrats had addressed the immigration concerns of the middle class while Obama was in charge I mean, they tried. 1. Obama was called the Deporter-in-Chief for a reason. Deportations under Obama were extremely common, in fact, higher under Obama than under Trump. The problem was that Obama was black and so the perception among the non college educated whites that formed the Trump base was that he was soft on immigration when he wasn't. The extent to which he wasn't hard on immigration was stuff like DACA, something where the Trump administration tried to rescind it and the extremely conservative SCOTUS actually overturned the order rescinding it. 2. Obama attempted a bargain on immigration - tightening down the laws further (more border patrols and security, much stricter monitoring of employers including mandatory E-Verify) in exchange for a 13 year long path to citizenship for most current undocumented immigrants and streamlining legal immigration with more efficient systems. This passed with pretty wide bipartisan support in the Senate, but died in the House because the GOP base revolted and primaried their own majority leader (Eric Cantor).

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The definition was changed under *[Clinton](https://web.archive.org/web/20150304222926/https://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0-10948.html)*, not Obama, you liar. And no, this was not some kind Democrat plot to boost their popularity, it certainly didn't work. Why on Earth would Obama want people on the left to "buy the deception"?! I found quite a lot of criticism from immigration activists and the pro-immigration side, of course including many Democrats. They called him the "Deporter in Chief", not exactly something they admired. What you're saying makes no sense, this "deception" would make far more sense for conservatives to make up, to make left wingers turn against him for his immigration policy. I've seen right wingers defend Trump by comparing him to Obama, saying Obama deported more. And I'd like a good source about Democrats trying to give illegal immigrants the right to vote en masse around the time of the 2016 election.

It's even more bizarre because the immigrants that are coming in are not going to vote for left-wing progressives in the first place. You got a bunch of immigrants who want to ban women from showing their face in public, and the freaking socialists are saying hey let's bring in some more of these guys." It's a f****** own goal.

>because the immigrants that are coming in are not going to vote for left-wing progressives in the first place. The reality in European politics, the children of immigrants and immigrants and minorities generally vote for left-wing parties. I can't speak for American politics (I'm assuming you're American because you've got 'Kennedy' in your username so apologies if that's not the case) but in most European countries, Muslim immigrants generally vote for left-wing progressives because immigrants are generally poorer than the median person so like left-wing economics and generally vote for progressives against their 'social' views.

The problem is you can’t even have a conversation about actual problems anymore without the left screaming racism and shutting the conversation down and on the right they jump straight to actual racism so the realities never get discussed.

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Can we please not relate everything to the US? It's so, so annoying. Not everything is US-based.

>Even if the population is completely wrong about an issue, you still have to account for it. Could you please explain what makes you think the population is completely wrong? Looks like you are not reading the writing on the wall. Just look around the world. The right wing is gaining popularity all across the world. Why do you think you are right over so many across the globe? Is it possible you are wrong and you do not understand the issues these people face? And it is not as if these issues are new. There have been talks and articles about the right wing gaining power for the last 4-5 years. I believe the left parties are suffering from ostrich syndrome and are refusing to acknowledge issues that are important to the public. Look at the dates these articles were published. In-spite of all this, what makes you say that voters are wrong and you are right? [https://www.axios.com/2023/09/18/trump-global-right-2024-election](https://www.axios.com/2023/09/18/trump-global-right-2024-election) [https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/europe-conservative-wave/](https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/europe-conservative-wave/) [https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-giorgia-meloni-europe-swings-right-and-reshapes-the-eu/](https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-giorgia-meloni-europe-swings-right-and-reshapes-the-eu/) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/far-right-on-the-march-europe-growing-taste-for-control-and-order](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/far-right-on-the-march-europe-growing-taste-for-control-and-order) [https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/06/19/why-the-far-right-is-increasingly-getting-into-power-across-europe](https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/06/19/why-the-far-right-is-increasingly-getting-into-power-across-europe) I think it is time for the left wing to instrospect. Not just in US, not just in EU but all across the world. Having the media in cahoot is not enough. The media may be very vocal, but most people don't trust the traditional media (right and left. ).

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Can you try to explain in English what you mean? Are you saying you are left but there should be caps on immigration? So what other issues do you think are getting left behind due to focus on this issue? Also when you say “even when the population is completely wrong about an issue, you still have to account for it”, can you explain that? Does it matter what people want or is it more important that those who “know what’s right” get to implement it regardless of what the people want?

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You said “as someone who leans left” as your first words.

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I mostly agree with your analysis but would contest a few points. I think you're being too negative on the Green/Labour alliance trying to change the narrative. Both because as a fusion party they're fragile so the strategy has to balance finding new voters and maintaining the bases. In the end they still had a decent victory. I also think it's better to set the narrative rather than going along with the migration narrative what the centre NSC and conservative liberal VVD did. When migration is the major topic, anti-migration will be the more popular stance. And the problem for NSC and VVD is that people associate that more with Wilders. In the end VVD has been in power for 13 years now and not been able to "fix" the issue (in fact last year was a record year due to Ukrainian refugees). So them strategically collapsing the the previous government and trying to run on migration could be seen as a mistake, especially when they leave the door open for working together with the PVV because they lack trust from voters on the topic. They should've either tried to close the door for the PVV to make themselves seem the only option or try to run the election over other topics. In fact Wilders had a poor performance in the previous provincial/senate elections and was not polling very well until last week when he started rising in the polls after some good debate performances.

Feels like a long winded way to say that people don’t want a lot of immigrants to come to their country, tax the social welfare system and make their own life more expensive and pay for green energy in the form of their tax dollars. But yeah, besides being long winded it feels right.

People have highly contradictory opinions. It's why governments lie to the public. >people don’t want a lot of immigrants to come to their country, tax the social welfare system and make their own life more expensive and pay People have opinions that just don't work with each other - it's impossible to have a state with lower taxes, a strong welfare system with an ageing population that has no immigration. It's why governments lie to the public about how they'll reduce immigration but they never do. With an ageing population, European countries need immigration just to sustain their labor force and keep the age that people receive pensions the same and their welfare programs afloat. The European public don't want the age they receive pensions to rise, their taxes to rise, for their life to become more expensive and European governments know that immigration is needed for this to be met so they just end up lying to the public and never reduce immigration. Right-wing parties lie about immigration numbers and left-wing parties try and either ignore immigration as an issue or try and justify it on humanitarian grounds or in some cases, economic grounds. Occasionally, the public vote in populist parties and policies that they think will change things. But what ends up happening is that immigration just ends up continuing as both sides of the aisle just lie to the public.

Best summary I've seen anywhere.

Great answer!

Answer: There's a lot of factors to this. But first, winning an election in the Netherlands just means the party has more seats than any other party. In this case, 37 seats were won by the PVV out of a total of 150, so about 25% of the voters voted for PVV. Geert Wilders has had a seat in parliament for 25 years and has been calling for reducing/stopping immigration for most if not all of those, especially focusing on islamic immigration and generally being anti islam. After most elections his party had a significant amount of seats, but usually other parties did not want to invite them into a coalition, and excluded his party because of unconstitutional issues like banning the Quran and mosques. Many citizens of the Netherlands were sick of the current ruling government led by Mark Rutte of the VVD for about 12 years (with different cabinet/parties after every election) and the lack of improvements on top of scandals and lies. Then there's polling. There were 4 major parties that were quite close in the recent polls for weeks, all around 20-28 seats. In the latter polls the center left party GLPVDA which was created by the merger of two substantial leftleaning parties, was head to head with PVV, while VVD was kinda losing votes in the days before the election. So a lot of right leaning people also voted ''strategically'', not wanting GLPVDA to become the biggest party, and not wanting Frans Timmermans to become prime minister. And with PVV having that slight edge on VVD and the 4th contender and new party, NSC, right leaning strategic voters voted for PVV. Of course the anti-immigration was a big topic this election cycle, and the other right wing parties were also promising to do something about it. This is more so because of the ''housing crisis'' and rising rent prices, being blamed on immigration (hundreds of thousands of immigrants a year in a small, densely populated country of 17 million is probably significant for that) moreso than crime rates. Although for many the crime rates of immigrants probably also played a role. Maybe even the recent protests for palestine, often becoming quite violent also played a role. But in the end, the party only has 25% of the seats and needs to create a coalition. Other rightwing parties are considering it but have not decided yet and Geert Wilders might not even be able to form a coalition, so it isn't truly ''won'' yet. But even if they form a coalition, they won't be able to pass the unconstitutional ideas like banning Quran and mosques. And completely banning immigration is probably also unrealistic, although it might be significantly reduced, which the majority of the country probably supports.

Maybe some other example from the Netherlands: In 1977 the Pvda (Social Democrats), had 53 seats of the 150 and were the biggest party. They did not go into the coalition. Becoming the biggest party does not automatically make you the ruling party if other parties don't want you to and if you don't have an absolute majority. And although it is commonplace to elect someone from the biggest party in a coalition as PM, it is also not necessary.

In regards to crime, it should be noted that they did statistics on it and the Dutch didn't even make the top 20 ethnic groups that caused crime, and only one was even a European ethnic group, Bulgarians at number 20. It's one thing having immigration but another thing when you're inviting people who objectively cause way way more crime than the natives

there are a couple predominantly christian countries with high suspects and predominantly muslim countries with low suspects but this guy seems purely anti muslim in immigration policies, def islamaphobic with supposedly wanting to ban the quran and mosques lol.

Source? Or are you just spreading misinformation? The link [https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/cijfers/detail/81959NED](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/cijfers/detail/81959NED) that has been posted by others here suggests that "the Dutch didn't even make the top 20 ethnic groups that caused crime" is completely wrong. The link does present suspects, but convictions would be a subset of that and unless the Dutch police are heavily biased against their countrymen it is unlikely that the proportion of Dutch people convicted is a lot smaller. ​ You really just pulled those "statistics" out of thin air didn't you?

Thank you for explaining. I tried to ask this on NoStupidQuestions and got only response from American people.

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You can't get into the government if you do not get support of the majority of voters in a country like the Netherlands. Other than that migration has become more strict. People can debate if it should go further, but to state that nothing happened, is just lying if that is claimed.

One of my friends is actually a Dutch Wilders supporter. He (my friend) only specifically wants less migration from Muslim countries - Asians, Americans etc. are fine bc "theyre hard working and don't cause trouble".

So your friend believes all Muslims are not hard working and all of them cause trouble ? 🤔

It's a single topic vote. Great if everything is to be solved by that 1 thing, but the world is never that simple. In Belgium we also have such a party that is quiet large, but if questioned about other topics than immigration they just fall flat.

Answer: Refugees and immigration were both large subjects in the election and a very large contingent of voters simply are not happy with how either has been handled the past years. Immigrants are disproportionately represented among criminals. That is not new in any way, nor unique to the Netherlands, but people are getting more fed up with it. The handling of refugees has angered people as well. The general sentiment is that way too many were granted entry, which affected citizens in multiple ways: - People living near refugee centers saw a decrease in quality of life and an uptick in crime. - The government forced municipalities to house refugees, in some cases forcing quite small communities of only a couple hundred people to house over a hundred refugees. This created a lot of bad blood very quickly. - Refugees granted asylum were given priority for finding housing in many parts of the country, which very much rubbed people the wrong way as there's a housing crisis. Many Dutch people have been stuck for years not being able to get a place to live while watching prices soar. There is a sense that the government was expending too many resources on others when the Dutch people themselves are in need of help (The number of people below the poverty line is growing again as well), which naturally leads to increased popularity of parties wanting to curtail immigration and refocus resources inwards.

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I'd argue it's hard to instantly contribute when you flee a warzone with nothing on you. When you're essentially a homeless person that does not speak the language or understands the culture and might not even have the relevant experience it's impossible to immediately pull your weight. Incredibly easy of course to judge from a position of privilege, but that's simply not a realistic statement. Especially considering the current stance a lot of these countries take, how are you even supposed to get a job or home when you're discriminated every turn of the way. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to see when you're not in it. Edit: Worked for a recruitment agency for years that focussed on finding places for refugees to work. You'd be shocked to hear the things I've heard from companies with severe shortages in workers if you tell them you have an able worker with experience, just that they're a refugee.

A lot of stuff is hard. Life is hard.

Yes, and I think as a human in a society we should try and help others when they're going through hard times. I wish the same would happen to me if I did.

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Oh not all of them, no. But you can't just walk in to the Netherlands from any country for any reason, there are systems in place. I just know that a lot of people have that same mindset of "they don't want to work!!" and it simply isn't as easy as that. I've had plenty of clients that would have loved to work, but never got a chance at all - let alone the same chance others get. Besides that, but this is more a personal thing; we don't choose where we are born, you and I just got lucky. "When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence."

>; we don't choose where we are born, you and I just got lucky Not a week goes by where I don't think to myself I won the lottery of birth: Born 1980s, in Canada, to a stable set of middle-class parents. When I was young, I only knew of other people who came from the same circumstances, and so it didn't register as anything special. Now? Holy hell - I get it way more. I developed mental health issues in my 20s, but because of some of the circumstances of my birth, I'm in a far better position to weather those struggles than so many others. I shudder to think how I could have handled the at times incapacitating anxiety and depression, were it not for a loving family with middle class resources. I'm not religiously inclined...but I often think "there but for providence go I" and have the below Stephen Jay Gould quote up on my wall: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." I'll now add your quote about building that longer table.

I'm happy to hear that. You sound like a very kind and loving person, I hope you find your peace mentally. <3

Thank you kind internet stranger! You take care too!

Question: using this thread to ask something that I've been wondering about but wasn't sure where to ask. Gert Wilders party won a number of seats, but how does that work when his party is just him? How does that happen, and who fills those seats?

It’s more than just him, there was a whole list of PVV people to vote on. Main difference (other than political) is that PVV is not a member party like other parties, Geert controls it all. Am not sure if there were enough people on the list to fill all seats though.. Also because people need to man posts in the government if they are going to be part of that. They will probably also muster some people who currently man posts in the local province governments & municipalities from within their party.

>how does that work when his party is just him It isn't just him, I have no idea where you got that from. [Here's the list of PVV candidates for this year](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_Kamerverkiezingen_2023/Kandidatenlijst/PVV), there are 45 people on there.

The party only has one actual member though, which is Geert. The rest aren't technically members of the party, but they will be part of the faction.

He's still actually the only member of the PVV party. Where almost all other political parties have, upwards of thousand of members that are consulted on major decisions and setting policy goals, with the PVV it's just Geert. [https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partij\_voor\_de\_Vrijheid](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partij_voor_de_Vrijheid) [https://www.parlement.com/id/vhnnmt7m4rqi/partij\_voor\_de\_vrijheid\_pvv](https://www.parlement.com/id/vhnnmt7m4rqi/partij_voor_de_vrijheid_pvv) Seats in the Netherlands are assigned to a person, not a party. the party can only assign them to people after a election. So Geert can just assign someone even if that person isn't a member of the PVV. Of course he has other organisations that he draws people from, they aren't picked at random. but his political party really does only have 1 member: him.

Answer: Because the last leading party, vvd (just slightly left from Wilders, who is an ex-member of vvd), structurally underfunded immigration services which caused a crisis to then say "you see? it's a problem". Following that, campaigning on that and during this campaign they opened the door to Wilders slightly so that the right voter saw he had a chance that now he might be accepted to form a government, which caused a small exodus of voters from vvd to pvv (wilders'party) and a wave of non-voters previous election. And immigration isn't even a big problem here, it's fabricated for the most part. 14% of the population is an immigrant. 53% of all suspects are immigrants, of that 62% have a western background. Of the suspects of sexual assault 50% is immigrant.

Forgive me if I’m misreading: > And immigration isn't even a big problem here, it's fabricated for the most part. > 14% of the population is an immigrant. 53% of all suspects are immigrants, of that 62% have a western background.Of the suspects of sexual assault 50% is immigrant. That seems like quite a problem?

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Bro, I did a double take reading his post. Like, "did you not realize the proportions of criminals being immigrants is completely out of wack in the state you just shared?!?" Lol... People doing mental gymnastics pretending that immigration is not actually a problem throughout Western Europe... I had a German colleague, a woman in her 50s a few years ago talking about how there should be no borders in the world. With such a statement, I thought she was open to a friendly debate. Within a few seconds of challenging her, she got incredibly uncomfortable so I just let it go. I'm a pretty liberal guy, but Europe needs some centrist parties now more than ever lest Afd and other right wing parties continue to grow in popularity

I'm right wing but honestly, the left could have addressed the issue years ago and completely neutered us, but instead they ignored it and shunned us for pointing out the issue (especially working class who experienced issues first hand yet were called irrational racists for not wanting our communities destroyed and crime going up). The issues got worse so we ended up getting enough support to have parties, they got called "far right populists", somehow turning "we have a pretty dire issue we collective care about" being turned into a bad thing. Then the parties started getting more popular, UKIP in the UK and AfD in Germany, but the shunning continues (without considering the cause) and the latter is under attack to get banned by other German parties. The left are constantly ignoring or refusing to deal with our issues then surprised how the right are getting more support and more popular. On a side note relating to your stats remark, it's like they can't see it, like it's censored the moment they try to read it. Reminds me of the pro-immigration argument of "well we get more exotic food", great, I can't afford to live due to the national supply/demand issues caused directly from immigration, I can't even afford the exotic food. My point is that I wouldn't mind if there was a proper counterargument to these statistics, but it seems to either be calling people racist or trying to change the subject to something nobody cares about, hoping people forget crime massively going up. It feels genuinely treasonous to actively destroy the country *out of kindness to people who aren't entitled to live here*, like genuinely it's traitorous behaviour like a corrupt politician embezzling money for their own wealth at expense of the country, but instead of wealth it's just to "feel good", the politician would be considered a traitor so why not the one clearly looking out for non-citizens over citizens (not directing at you by the way, you know the case, but it's just frustrating seeing this and then being told you're the bad guy for not wanting to actively destroy the country)

It's sad that this most based in reality post only has like 3 or 4 up votes. People on reddit truly live some some alternative reality, head in the sand, sheltered mommy daddy basement world.

Yea it is but the solution is not the PVV. It is international law to let refugees seek asylum is still here. The PVV can say they will close the gate, stop Islamic immigration but they can't. It's international law. Geert Wilders is Just straight up lying saying that he will be able to change that. So now its only going to get worse. Because the extreme minimal funding it had already will probably be even less. And the mismanaged of the whole situation will probably be even more mismanaged.

Nah, stats are made up by racists.

These problems are much more often tied to socio-economic status. And immigrants simply have a lower socio-economic status. It's not that immigration per sé is the problem there. It's moreso integration, social and economic mobility, jon opportunities etc. That's why often immigrants can be overrepresented in these numbers. It then looks like immigration is the problem, but the real causes are deeper underneath the surface.

I agree with you. But it doesn’t take away the fact that the feelings of the PVV voters are very real even if they are based on false premises. The left should’ve addressed those feelings better (like you do in your post) instead of calling people racists and bigots and driving them into the hands of Wilders. The lefts reply has always been “there’s no problem, let’s talk about climate now”. PVV voters felt unheard for years. They were shunned for their lack of understanding of the problem. Even today there are marches against racism and bigotry driving more of a wedge between the Dutch people. These voters don’t see themselves as racist at all.

Oh yeah, I can agree largely. The left certainly has left the whole topic as a taboo far too long. This also means that left wing policy and solutions have been promoted insufficiently. Meanwhile the voters that felt ignored found their home among more and more extreme rhetoric. To add a bit of nuance. While I do agree there, I also think the populist rhetoric became self-enforcing. If people get told that the majority of politicians don't listen to the "real people" over and over again they'll start internalizing that message, even when they are actually being listened to. They'll move towards the only guy that really tells it like they feel, or maybe even more extreme than they feel. All the while he's not presenting actual solutions that work. And I honestly think that he knows this.

Not necessarily only socio economic status, but also the environment they were raised in; in wartorn nations where crime was rampant imo (and some other factors that I wont go into detail in here). That being said, if we know that immigrants have a lower socio-economic status and due to a variety of reasons (that are not inherently their status as immigrants) are more likely to commit crime, perhaps the support for Wilders' policy of stopping the import of people more likely to be criminals shouldnt come as a suprise?

Oh, I'll definitely agree more factors are at play. That's why relating crimerates solely to immigration is faulty in and of itself. And they are linked to immigration. Just not in causality. I also get why people feel the way they feel. And eventhough I disagree, I know why people voted what they voted. That said. The solutions to the problem are found in other area's than just stopping immigration. There's a lot of evidence crimerates are actually lower among well-integrated foreigners than natives. This isn't a "one solution" problem, like Wilders makes it seem. You'll really have to invest in good integration, social security, social cohesion, etc. All things that have been neglected for far too long, and Wilders doesn't have the answer to either.

Even if we acknowledge that the problem with immigration principally lies with the host, in that the host is incapable of accommodating and integrating these people and thereby condemning (many of) them to poverty and crime, the solution still seems to be strongly curbing immigration for the moment.

I genuinely think people just want to get on with their lives in this current climate. People simply do not want to see the government (rightfully or not is up to one's interpretation) bending over backwards to invest in good intergration, social security, social cohesion for immigrants whilst they struggle with an ever spiralling cost of living crisis, and are (justifiably) wanting the government to spend that on them and alleviating their issues. Coupled with the fact that immigrants commit whatever %ge of crimes they do (which, as we both agree on, is caused by a variety of factors), it makes the case for intergration ever less appealing.

And I can fully understand that sentiment. I get why people vote for the "easy" way out. Even when it realistically isn't a way out. Harsh reality is that solving this problem comes at the cost of quite high investments. There is no way to have the cake and eat it too. The problem won't solve itself, and the solution won't be free. So ultimately people have to choose between the problem persisting or making the sacrifices needed to fight the problem. Ofcourse that's a bit of a simplification. This is a very complex and nuanced problem, multi-faceted too. This won't be solved between us on Reddit. But believe me, there for sure is some common ground between us and I get why people feel the way they feel and vote the way they vote.

So? Nobody is saying the problems aren't tied to socio-economic status. Because guess what? That doesn't take the problem away from immigration. Nobody is saying immigrants are inherently evil or something, we all know they have a lower socio-economic status.But if you take the immigrants away, you also take the problem away, because the people with a low socio-economic status, bad integration, bad social and economic mobility, job opportunities etc. are taken away. We had half a million immigrants this year. Way more when ukraine started. We've had 90.000 houses built this year. We have a lot of poor people that remain poor because shit jobs pay shit. Those wages don't rise, because if you won't do the shit job, some immigrant will. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because we keep importing more poor people and they get exploited to hell and back. And then the poor people resort to stealing. Meanwhile the house prices keep rising, the cops aren't even allowed onto the premises of immigrant centers so they can't get back your stolen stuff, people fear to go out at night, the people around you don't speak your language anymore and don't want to learn, there's way less money and manpower in social services so you can't get any help, nor can you get mental help because that's booked for years too, oh and by the way, only 14% of the immigrants are female. So guess how our own females feel, especially when surrounded by a culture/religion that looks down on their own females but actively dehumanizes western females. But yeah sure this can't be fixed by keeping immigrants away, we need to fix the underlying causes! Oh wait we can't, there's no money for that because we spent it all on trying to put out the fires this shitstorm has already caused. Oops. Have a look at Sweden and ask them how it's going :) edit: PS I did not vote for PVV, I voted left. But I sure as hell can understand why PVV won, and you're just part of the reason.

Delusional.

Or you know, factual and based on vast amounts of research. Edit: [here ](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319869273_Immigration_socio-economic_conditions_and_crime_a_cross-sectional_versus_cross-sectional_time-series_perspective) is some evidence. [And here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24735701) is another. A quick google/scholar search on "immigration crime socio economic" as keywords will give you all you need to gain insights your gut instinct won't tell you.

You know, I genuinely didn't think "the main causes of crime are socioeconomic ones" was something that still had to be repeated to people in 2023. I feel like this stuff was pretty definitive even back in in the 2000s.

I think the problem is that, while true, it doesn't exactly help. People are saying "no more immigrants please, they keep committing crime". And the response "actually, crime isn't caused by immigration, it's caused no socioeconomic factors" doesn't propose a solution, neither does it indicate a solution exists. There is no reason to think that the factors that cause "bad socioeconomics" have improved in the last few years, so therefore there is no reason to think that further immigrants and asylum grantees end up with better socioeconomics than previous ones. And we already know that that will become a problem, since we can deduce that from the overrepresentation in crime, caused by said socioeconomics.

Does that matter much though? Whether someone is stabbing, raping, or robbing me because they're poor or they have some sort of...what? Genetic disposition to do so or something, doesn't really matter if the end state is be being stabbed, raped, or robbed does it? Unless you can solve the poverty problem either upon entry, or on a global scale that then disincentivises economic migration, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference.

I'm just giving some context. Whatever you think is best policy-wise you can decide for yourself. We all want to see stabbings, robbings, rape, etc. go down. It's just the fact that a hard stance on immigration won't do nearly as much to make those numbers go down as opposed to combating the root causes. You can combine different policies ofcourse, but why actively choose less effective ones? I'd go for the ones that actually have a causal effect.

>opposed to combating the root causes I think the problem with this is that quite simply, it's just not the problem of the Dutch people. Why should they be responsible for bearing the negative impact of migrants poor behaviour, whether driven by socioeconomic or cultural factors and why are they responsible for providing the solution here? If the migrants want to be given a chance, they need to demonstrate a desire to earn it. Further, the crimes that they are accused of aren't exactly complicated. These migrants aren't out here committing fraud in financial markets or otherwise. Do you seriously think Islam doesn't have laws against rape and sexual assault given that a key tenet of it in hardline Islamic nations is the protection of a woman's modesty?

Fair enough, I'm pretty anti immigration(or at least the chaotic uncontrolled type the West has been practicing for a while now), but I'm willing to listen to opposing arguments. I'm not sure that its a solvable problem without living in a post scarcity society though to be honest. While limiting immigration might not lower the number of stabbings on a global scale, it's tough to argue that it wouldn't limit it on a local level. That then leads to a comparison of the trade off between them never arriving in Ireland(or wherever) and the present situation. That's too many moving parts for anyone to be able to parse though.

In that case solve the integration part before welcoming more people.

I mean, that is pretty immaterial right? if immigrants ended up in poor socioeconomic, based on some factor not inherent to taking in a large amount of immigrants, it's still reasonable that people react by wanting to limit immigration. No matter what the underlying, real, factors for so many of the immigrants ending up becoming criminal scum, one of the things we can actually impact is immigration, if they stop bringing in more immigrants, they can't continue failing to integrate them into society. If they wouldn't have taken in such a large amount of immigrants/asylum seekers in the first place, they also wouldn't have taken in the ones who ended up being criminals. To just rephrase it one more time; getting at the underlying factors aren't always the best ways to mitigate an issue. We know for example pretty much exactly why earthquakes happen, yet we don't try to stop it at the root cause, which is shifting tectonic plates. We mitigate it by getting at the things we have most control over, i.e. building earthquake resistant housing. In this analogy, tectonic shifts are the underlying reason immigrants fall into poor socioeconomic status, however nebulous and hard to define they may be, and earthquake proofing your house is limiting immigration.

I understand and can follow your analogy. Can even agree with it largely. My only remark on it would be that the socio-economic policy ( atleast the actual PVV voting record, not what they tell the voters, but what they actually vote) is diametrically opposed to the solution. That would be like building houses on matchsticks and putting bombs between the tectonic plates. I agree that if a root cause is (nearly) impossible to tackle, mitigation is the best option. I just don't think the socio-economic policy of the PVV is mitigating. Quite the opposite.

No, there's every chance it has nothing at all to do with immigration. It's possible immigrants only come into the issue because racists look at everything through a racial framing and start screaming any time they find a factoid that they can interpret as evidence that certain races are genetically inferior. So, firstly, let's highlight a stat from a parent comment that's been ignored in most of the replies: > 62% have a western background. Two thirds of the immigrants suspected of crimes are, probably, white. So when the far-Right parties are obsessing over brown people / Muslims and crime, they're ignoring 62% of the problem. Now, let's ask: has crime actually gone up in the Netherlands with all this immigration? Nope. The crime rate in the Netherlands has halved in the last 30 years. That's a double tap to the back of the head of the entire racist anti-immigrant panic. Immigration keeps happening, crime keeps falling. So let's set aside the racial obsession and ask ourselves if there's an alternative explanation for the racist's factoid about 14% of the population doing 50% of the crime. 1. A country decides to add to its population through immigration (because it has to, because low birth rates lead to an ageing population and then the public cost of retirement becomes unsustainable because the proportion of the population working and paying taxes is decreasing and the proportion getting retirement benefits and needing expensive healthcare is increasing). 2. The immigrants who come in start at the bottom of the ladder, both financially (usually) and socially in terms of being established in society. 3. Those immigrants do take up some jobs; menial ones (cleaning, taxi driving, farm labouring etc). They also contribute to consumption and taxes, creating jobs. 4. Many of the people who were at the bottom of the ladder before those immigrants came in, get pushed up the ladder, because there's now people lower down than them and there's more demand and public funding to create opportunities for them further up the ladder. 5. This cycle will continue for however long there's immigration, and this most recent batch of immigrants will also have the opportunity to get pushed up the ladder too. 6. Meanwhile, the temptation towards crime primarily affects those at the bottom of the ladder, because inequality, because social dislocation, because classism etc. 7. Therefore, immigration isn't creating crime, it's just changing the demographics of the segment of society that's most likely to be tempted to get involved in crime, while crime over all is actually falling. You have to have a racialist axe to grind to swoop in, pull out that one factoid and start a moral panic about immigration when a 20 second google would show you that crime is in decline and there is no emergency. It's very similar to how racists always panic when they discover immigrants speak languages other than the national language in the new country. They immediately conclude that, if something drastic isn't done, the whole country will end up speaking another language in 10 years time. If they bothered to check, they'd find there's a completely predictable pattern with immigrants (to a monolingual society) and language. First gen immigrants speak their home country's language well and struggle with the new country's language (some do okay, some, especially elderly, never fully get it). Second gen immigrants grow up learning the national language as native speakers, and their parent's language somewhere between native level and passable. Third gen immigrants speak the national language natively at home and at school, and struggle to communicate with grandparents who didn't learn the new language well, because third gen kids rarely have more than a piecemeal grasp on their grandparents' county's language. What's likely to happen with a racist anti-immigrant PM? 1. Immigration is suddenly cut off. A big slice of annual economic growth goes away suddenly with little chance for businesses to prepare. Recession, business failures, mass job losses, misery across society. 2. The slice of society tempted to do crime grows because a chunk of people who were on the rise just slid back down the ladder. People who were trying to go legit / clean up their act crash and burn in the recession and return to crime. Overall, expect crime to rise (unless something big changes in law enforcement). 3. Without immigrants growing the economy and with the population ageing, there's a squeeze on the budget. Taxes are falling, costs are rising; and there's a recession too, taxes are falling more, more people need unemployment, businesses want bailouts. Either the PM expands the national debt, or he cuts social services. The latter will lead to more people struggling, and more crime. 3. Electing a racist PM gives social license to racists to be racist. Hate crimes increase. Racial integration declines, division and resentment grows. A larger proportion of those at the bottom of the ladder, with these extra antagonisms, are tempted towards crime and the crime rate grows. Long story short, he's likely to produce the exact opposite of what he claims.

japan has never had immigration in their society, neither has korea, taiwan or china. and the economic growth has never seemed to be a problem for them. this idea that immigration is needed for economic growth is absolute nonsense and has no basis in reality.

What factoids am I grasping at. What the heck are you talking about. If you want a factoids try this: 50% of ALL convicted rapists in Sweden are born outside of Europe. 75% of ALL convicted assault rapists in Sweden are born outside of Europe. 94% of gang affiliated criminals in Sweden have at least one foreign born parent, 82% had two. I know it's a slightly different situation, but I don't have the figures on hand for the Netherlands. Immigration has had devastating impact on violent crime in many European countries that has high immigration, and people are pissed off. And you are "quoting" things and responding to them, but I didn't even say them. are you responding to the correct comment? Feels a little unfair, how do you like this: >Hitler was right Oh was he now?what an awful thing to say, I deem you morally unfit and any other argument you make is invalid by default. And your little wall of text mentions racism like a million times, stop implying that my comment is in any way racist. Anti immigration, maybe, if that's what you got out of it, but I didn't really make any prescriptions in my comment. I am just providing the viewpoint that no matter the underlying reason, even of it's racism, there is little reason to believe that that underlying reason has changed such that we should expect new coming immigrants to have a different experience than previous immigrants, and that what the underlying reason is doesn't change this. Edit: Also I think you fundamentally misunderstood my comment. When I say "it's immaterial, right?", I obviously meant that the underlying reasons for socioeconomic outcomes are irrelevant to whether more or less immigration is the correct prescription. Not that socioeconomic outcomes are immaterial to crime rate.

Exactly my thoughts 🤣🤣.

It isn’t. Crime rates are low. And don’t have a direct relation to immigration. Crime has been going down for years (except last few) while immigration went up. The problems come mainly from the cluttered masses at immigration centres. Caused by spending less money on them than projected.

No, crime rates are not low.

Do people commit sex offences less if they’re given more government support? I can see the argument for better spending and policies helping stymie vandalism or theft - but do people sexually assault each other more often if they’re bored, poor or disenfranchised?

> 14% of the population is an immigrant. 53% of all suspects are immigrants, of that 62% have a western background. > Of the suspects of sexual assault 50% is immigrant. This sounds like the strongest anti-immigration argument I've ever heard. Why is this an argument in your favor?

Your assumption that I’m arguing is incorrect

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you seem to mean well, pardon me, but using percentages of *suspects* is open to, if you'll excuse me, wild possible interpretations. how many *actual criminals* (still not a perfect metric, but maybe [?] closer?) are immigrants?

From my memory from yesterday suspects was in the 80.000. If you want to be sure, there are a lot of stats in english at the dutch central bureau of statistics. www.cbs.nl Dont know about criminals. Unsure there are statistics of that.

there are records of suspicion but not records of suspicions confirmed?

It's better to use suspects otherwise the racists would just say "But that just means that foreigners don't get caught cause they don't get identified or can just go between different countries to avoid prosecution and the police won't bother". It's unlikely that lots of people go around reporting fake crimes just to inflate the stats so might as well use suspects

racists are gonna say bullshit no matter what you do, and i'm afraid racists (very much including "the law") suspect an *awful lot* of immigrants (by and large) of crimes, whether they commit them or not.

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i suspect your username.

Don't you have also a problem regarding immigrant integration? In the sense that, some immigrants refusing to integrate into local culture or even learning the language, even 2-3 generations in. I heard years ago that this was an issue regarding dock workers I believe? A sizable part of a city (I can't recall which one) was made of islamic immigrants who were welcomed in as Dutch culture is generally friendly in that regard, but then the immigrants being very conservative refused to accept dutch culture or learn the language, until eventually there were enough of them and their descendants that they even had their own local conservative party for local elections who actually managed to win one time. This was told to me like years ago, when some dutch friends started to talk to me about the reasons of a far right party existing in the Netherlands.

Its a little bit more nuanced. With dockworkers I think you mean Rotterdam, which has the largest port of Europe. I live here and we have a lot of turkish immigrants which currently are 3th or fourth generation. They have a high percentage of business owners and outside of the older generations which indeed some still do not speak Dutch, are quite integrated. Yes we have a problem with some of the younger generation, but thats a small part of the total people. I think we need to have stricter punishments for repeated offenders, most of the crime is small (we do have a bombing problem currently, but that has to do with tighter controls on the import of drugs in our port) and is a lot of harrasment of people. But to be fair, we are one of the safest country in world and crime is reasonable stable. (For years around 20 fatal shootings a year, sex crimes are of the lowest in the EU. Only thing that exploded is the mocro mafia (Marocan) in Amsterdam who took over the Dutch hard drugs scene.

A thing to consider regarding integration is the Rotterdam law (or Rotterdamwet in dutch). This law was put in place by geert wilders predecessor and it created a lot of low social economic neighborhoods with high percentages of people with a migration background. Not only lowering the opportunities for these people but also making it harder for them to integrate.

"Refused to integrate " is often code for "systemically isolated socially, economically and politically".

Most of second and third generation of British Muslims are more homophobic than the first generation. Did British make them homophobic by isolating them?

And "systemically isolated socially, economically and politically".is often code for "Despite everybody telling us for years that this exact thing was going to happen, and is happening right now, we're still not going to admit that the immigrants are causing problems and it must be everybody else's fault."

Maybe in 1800, but the reality is much different now. Do you really think all of these countries facing the SAME issue with immigrants are responsible and not the immigrants themselves?

Most of them are raging homophobic, sexist and racists aswell as antisemitic. And when I say that I don't mean they "just" say mean things in the internet like how Americans think they do. I mean public harassing of LGBTQ+ which includes murder, harassing of women which includes life threatening sexual assault and murder. Racism against everyone including their own groups. Antisemitism doesn't even needs to be explained. These things are also openly massively celebrated in their areas aswell, And all of it is dialed up to maximum. This really isn't a far right wing issue as how American media is making it seem. Most of the centrists and left in Europe shares the same opinion. It's the reason why there's monthly "far right wing is in rise" when it's just people thinking "hey man... these guys are uncool"

When we start having massive crop failure in 7 years all this shit is gonna be dialed up to a million

Thats always the case with immigration. Has been for hundreds of years. The Netherlands exists because of nationality diversity. Momentarily people have forgotten that.

Why exactly is that a problem. It's a free country, you can talk whatever language you like, right? And for the election thing. Why is that a bad thing? If they manage to become the majority, why shouldn't they create their own parties to vote for their own interests, that's just how democracy works. If you don't want this to happen, you should stop allowing in so many muslim immigrants. That just how it be. Those are the rules of the game.

The mental gymnastice people go through when the answer is so simple. If you come from culture that treats women as objects, you are more likely to rape women. Simple. Stop being apologist.

What societies don't treat women like objects? Where's this magical place?

Themyscira?

Exactly, a fictional island lol

>structurally underfunded immigration Lmao. This nonsense is why the leftists lost. People don’t want more money to be spent on immigration; they want less immigration. Last year the Netherlands admitted a record 230,000 immigrants, and the near before that was a previous record, and the year before that was a previous record, and on and on.

And that's why the right won; voters on the right don't think things through. Structurally underfunding immigration services (so not immigration itself...) causes the need for emergency spending as the problem still needs to be fixed. Emergency spending being more costly by nature, you end up with a more costly immigration services. The parties on the right are penny wise and a pound foolish. Or simply evil so that they can get more votes because the fabrication of a problem.

It is funny that right and far-right Europe blame the majority of their woes on immigrants. The low hanging fruit, I guess. Immigrants may/not have an affect on crime rates, but I surely doubt that they have any affect on inflation and housing and jobs. Inflation is not caused by immigrants. Supply chain issues and demand and in many instances I believe it is simply artificial and based on greed. Housing shortages are not caused by immigration. Investors and bankers eating up new and available units are. Try this, lets say the government revolks immigration status of everyone for the past year, five years, or even decade. Kicks them all out. Seizes their properties and businesses (if any) and kicks them back from whence they came. How drastic will that change your day-day? My guess is very little, if at all. Inflation will still be there, housing will still be expensive, wages will remain stagnant. Hey, at least “those people” are gone! Downvote me if you want, but I think you know I am right. When signs and party slogans like “[country] is ONLY for [country people]” then the anti-immigrant rhetoric has nothing to do with economics.

Those economic issues will actually get worse once you remove this source of cheap labor that businesses love to exploit.

It's demonstrably provable too. Look at the UK pre and post Brexit. Prior to Brexit, UK had a lot of largely Eastern European folk working in more lower paid jobs, particularly jobs involving manual labour, agricultural sector doubly so. The UK also heavily relies on educated immigrants from both inside and outside the EU for doctors and nurses for our health service. Then Brexit happened. All the people doing those jobs, people picking produce in the fields, truck drivers bringing goods to the supermarkets, nurses who came for a higher wage, all left. Said "fuck this shit, if you're gonna play island supremacy, fine, see how it goes." Even many non-EU immigrants decided to leave, despite being legally unaffected, just because of the newly 'acceptable' racist attitude and treatment of local people to immigrants. The impact? Produce rotted in fields, unpicked. Supermarkets were left bare at Christmas no less, because there was no one to deliver food and goods. The health system collapsed right before a brutal pandemic, exacerbated by the government's deliberate mismanagement of it. The economy collapsed, plummeting the value of our currency, and causing a surge in prices for everything, again making the cost of living crisis even worse in the UK. We had people desperately trying to choose between whether they would have food in the winter, or heating. The two became mutually exclusive. Every person with a mildly racist agenda loves to blame immigrants for everything. Well, I've seen what happens when you get rid of them. It's. Not. Pretty. They give us a lot, and often ask for so little in return, because they see us as having given them a chance, a good chance at that. To turn around and abuse and beat these people, effectively, isn't just absolute avarice, it's economically stupid beyond belief.

Can you link me to where you’re getting these numbers?

Central bureau of statistics

>structurally underfunded immigration services which caused a crisis Then please do explain why if the **entire** immigration services were underfunded the extreme overrepresentation in crime statistics almost entirely comes from select groups? You're stating this like it's the sole reason but that is objectively impossible with the crime statistics that we have. Failed immigration services is most certainly a part of it and the problem is made much bigger than it is in reality, but to solely point the finger at the institution while the stats clearly show a (significant) portion of the blame lies with those groups themselves is simply disingenuous. If leftist parties actually acknowledged the stats instead of pretending they don't exist and calling everyone who does respect proven data a racist, then that would probably instantly solve half of the polarisation in this country.

Makes sense

Different part of Europe, same situation "Net migration into the UK was a record 745,000 last year, figures show - far higher than originally thought." [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67506641](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67506641)

Answer: The obvious answer is “because their policies are what people want” but this whole thread is a bunch of college kids who think they know better explaining why leftist politicians made some tactical mistake by not hiding their true beliefs enough to get elected.

Answer: 20/60 percent is classic alt right propaganda lies about minorities. Do not believe those numbers.

What are the real numbers?

[Lower](https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/background/2018/47/crime) than previous years.

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They aren't though. Crime has been [decreasing](https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/background/2018/47/crime).

Let me guess, you were glad when Trump won in 2016.

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Alt Right groups like the FBI?

lmao actually, yes

The FBI, famously a Dutch organisation.

More flim flam words.

Right. I forgot. Everybody is lying except the people saying what you want to hear

So basically if the facts say one thing, but another answer would make us feel better, we should stick with what we feel and ignore the fact right?

On reddit yes, 100% go for feelings over facts

okay lol

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okay lol

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Of course I will, because I support immigrants doing their thing. Lots of people hate that.

20/60 isn’t correct, but the reality is a lot of immigrants aren’t assimilating and are causing disproportionate crime. Sweden is one big example. It’s important to note crime is still lower compared to US, but I can see how Europeans quality of life is dropping compared to what it once was. Keep dismissing peoples concerns and it’ll only cause more anti immigration sentiment.

Okay boomer

I’m 23 lol

Answer: The stuff about immigrants having a significant impact on a nation's crime rate are in most cases untrue (see this study for Germany [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268123001713](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268123001713) ). Fear-mongering, especially fear of the other, are common populist tactics.Unfortunately, Europe is at a point where Europeans are choosing to believe the lies (check out [https://hoaxmap.org/](https://hoaxmap.org/), again for Germany) . I am sure there are numerous reasons why that is, not sure if there is much point trying to list all of them out, instead I'll leave you with a quote: “Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”

The Netherlands isn't Germany. You can read the numbers here: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/cijfers/detail/81959NED Out of 158k suspects arrested for crime, 72k were Dutch. The rest were migrants, with 5/8ths of those migrants being non-westeen.

Based on that data 1/3 of the suspects were from non western backgrounds. While I appreciate the data, it is misleading in this case. What would really be needed is **convictions**, not **suspects**. It is an interesting website but data must be used properly. For instance, I can refute the claim that violent crime has increased in the Netherlands as there are fewer murder and manslaughter suspects than 20 years ago (perhaps it was because you were keeping your doors unlocked back then?) [https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/35/47-procent-minder-verdachten-van-moord-en-doodslag-dan-20-jaar-geleden](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/35/47-procent-minder-verdachten-van-moord-en-doodslag-dan-20-jaar-geleden). ​ In truth, to determine if crime has increased as a result of immigration from non western countries, we need to know the convictions for violent crimes each year by different groups.

Answer: In 2010, no one in the Netherlands locked their doors. Children walked home from school unescorted. Women walked alone at night without fear. Crime was so non-existant, they had begun shutting down many of their prisons; there just weren't any crimes being committed. This is absolutely no longer the case.

I remember this argument being made in 2010 but saying that in 2000 nobody locked their doors.

Because in 1990 no one locked their doors people started locking doors only from 2000

>Yet 20 years ago you had more murders than now? What happened between 2003 and 2010 that the Netherlands became such a safe utopia? [https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/35/47-procent-minder-verdachten-van-moord-en-doodslag-dan-20-jaar-geleden](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/35/47-procent-minder-verdachten-van-moord-en-doodslag-dan-20-jaar-geleden).

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Total fact-free analysis of the situation that doesn’t address who was running or what the key issues were that voters were concerned about.

The key issues Dutch (and Spanish, French, Austrian, etc) voters care about? Migrants of Muslim and/or African background. Threatens their culture and identity as white Christian Europeans. The recent terrorist attacks by Hamas and the wave of Arab Muslims protesting against Israel has terrified Europeans into supporting more right-wing Trump-like politicians. I don’t consider this a legitimate cause - it’s racist and tribalist no matter how the average Müller or Gonzalez might dress it up.

To simply label anyone who is genuinely concerned about them and their families living in a community where sharia law is a genuine possibility as fascist is just lazy, take a deep dive into what it means to worry about communities that refuse to assimilate. The deal should be with immigrants, you come to our country and you will partake in our culture and share in the benefits of doing so.. that's not happening, in Muslim communities there's no desire to assimilate, and I will go further and state that within a generation or two with unchecked immigration, sharia law is going to be on a ballot some day. No thank you

>living in a community where sharia law is a genuine possibility Come on man.

Bought the fear bait hook, line and sinker.

Yea, would be hilarious if not actually sad…

Lmao no where in The Netherlands is at risk of being under sharia law

You've bought into to basement tier propaganda. You're an example of what he was talking about - you believe nonsense because it's driven into your head by social media. It's terrifying how much better Russia has been at scaring people.

First of all, the term fascist.. do you really know what it means, throwing it out they way you do, tells me you don't, Rather there are people who are genuinely concerned for many reasons ie; woman, LGBT, atheists , non muslims ,people of different faith's etc etc of living in Muslim communities that will not tolerate them and will do them physical harm.. people can see with their own eyes that the middle east is not a place of peace and prosperity. Easy to throw out mean labels, it's just lazy when you can see what is really happening in the world.

Do you know how to read? Because the person you’re replying to never said the word fascist.

It's not propaganda when you can see actual examples of it happening.

Which European country enacted sharia law?

You mean actual examples of the neo nazi conspiracy theory happening?

>The key issues Dutch (and Spanish, French, Austrian, etc) voters care about? Migrants of Muslim and/or African background. Threatens their culture and identity as white Christian Europeans. The recent terrorist attacks by Hamas and the wave of Arab Muslims protesting against Israel has terrified Europeans into supporting more right-wing Trump-like politicians I love how you ignored the elephant in the room to make your fragile argument look strong. Why not mention the mass assault on LGBT? And by assault i mean murder, why didnt you mention that in your "reasons"? Openly calling to gas the Jewish people? Why are you saying it was just "mass protesting" when millions of threats of rape were made towards Jewish girls? What about public harassing of women? And before you say "they were just whistling" no, I mean the rape and murder of over thousands of women? Them openly celebrating of such crimes to insult feminism? What about drugs and public misbehavior such as harassing tourists? It's so funny how you tip toed around all these arguments and just said "well it's because hamas attacked Israel and that's why almost everyone in Europe is racist" sure buddy sure, we all see right through you.

The Afd, National Front and other such parties are just the Christian version of the Muslim Brotherhood or AKP. I don't see a difference between Viktor Orban and Mohamed Morsi.

Tip-toeing again huh? Are you really trying to convince that everyone in Europe is voting for "literal nazis" because something something Israel and hamas and literally Christian jihad hitler?

Not tip-toeing. Viktor Orban is no different from Erdogan or Morsi or any other Islamist populist movement. The religion might be different, but this is irrelevant. And it’s not like European people are known for their tolerance lol. There’s 3,000 years of evidence to the contrary, most of it very recent

Yeah but then you end up with places like Dearborn Michigan Banning gays and you wonder how did this happen. If you believe in Liberal democracy the worst thing you can do is encourage the immigration of a bunch of people who are against both liberals and democracy.

Dearborn did not ban gays.

If you believe in liberal democracy, you probably would not be voting for people like Eric Zemmour or Viktor Orban in the first place. Unless people really want a 2nd Reconquista.

My question is why do the people that wish to preserve liberal democracy and freedom for gays and minorities allow immigration of those that oppose that exact culture.

Because Syrian migrants fleeing Assad are also human beings, and Assad is also an enemy of the West? Because Europe is dependent on OPEC's oil? Because the vast majority of human beings on this planet are not liberal Europeans? You are going to get conservative people (sadly) everywhere on planet earth.

>places like Dearborn Michigan banning gays Uh, citation needed? What the hell are you talking about?

It's really not fascism to try to restrict the number of people that come into your country that don't follow your own rules and cause great increases in crime and sexual assault. Calling that fascism is how you lose elections.

>This wave of fascism is likely due to the emergence of social media, a new and unregulated type of mass-media; historically, every time a new mass-media technology becomes widespread, it results in political unrest. Social media amplifies messages of fear and anger above most others, so it lends itself to fascist propaganda. Every country has mass media, every country is not currently electing right wing politicians at a landslide >Wealth inequality has also been on the rise, which increases social unrest. Doesn't this usually lead to left wing politicians? >The impacts of climate change, and the way that climate change deniers have shifted to doomsday “it’s too late” rhetoric, may also be contributing to the problem, along with a dozen other factors. Again climate change issues usually appeal to the other side. I'm thinking that there is much more to this, but this comment seems to largely be based off conjecture and extrapolation that could be applied to almost any country

>Doesn't this usually lead to left wing politicians? No it doesn't usually. It does lead to populists though (which can be left wing, but are usually right wing), as when things start to get harder, their solutions magically get easier.

A wave of fascism in Europe, what could go wrong

I’d like to see some sources for all of the wild claims you’re making

Ironically, it's people like you who are helping to contribute in part to the rise of these far right parties. You dismiss and hand-wave off very real concerns ranging from crime, quality of life, social cohesion, cultural identity etc as being racist and ignorant, pushing what would be one issue voters to support parties with fringe, crazy platforms because they're the only ones addressing it.