Holland’s Own Trumpland: From Zwarte Piet to Geert Wilders

To say that the Donald Trump’s (electoral college) victory has galvanized the far right globally is an understatement. Though France’s Marine Le Pen tends to grab most of the headlines here in the States, she may soon be upstaged by the Netherlands’s Geert Wilders, who just delivered his closing statement in a hate-speech trial he deemed unworthy of his presence for most of its proceedings. (The trial stemmed from a 2014 rally at The Hague in which Wilders told supporters who’d voiced their desire for fewer Moroccans in Holland that “we will arrange that.”)

This isn’t the first time Wilders has run afoul of Dutch law. In 2011 he faced similar charges for comparing the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, along with issuing other anti-Islamic denunciations. He’s also a serious contender for Prime Minister. Sound familiar? Wilders, like Trump, is no anomaly. He’s simply the loudest voice in a seedy underbelly of intolerance that’s been running through all Western “free nations” since their founding. Indeed, Wilders and the Holland template can provide much needed insight into our own troubled, white nationalist terrain.

To read the rest of my essay visit Global Comment.