Javier Milei in Argentina and Geert Wilders in The Netherlands both won big this week. What's in it for us?
The connection between the two countries is an odd one. Queen Maxima of The Netherlands is an Argentine commoner. She was granted Dutch citizenship by royal decree in 2001 and her union to then Crown Prince Willem-Alexander was approved by Parliament with some controversy. A secret report was commissioned to investigate her father and protect Dutch interests from any skeletons in the family closet. Her father was a Cabinet Minister in the 1976 Argentine coup d'état by a military junta against Isabel Peron's government, resulting in subsequent activities by the ominous "right wing death squads" that South America is famous for. Her parents agreed not to attend their wedding or coronation to avoid any diplomatic incidents.
My knowledge of Argentine politics is limited, but the victory of a right libertarian figure points to economics as their primary concern, with the threat posed by cultural progressivism a clear second. The economy is so broken they've become the first country to elect a genuine hardline libertarian to power. He's also intellectually aware of the "woke" problem and its origins, speaking openly of Gamsci's influence on that movement to Tucker Carlson recently. His first promised action is to delete the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity.
Javier Milei and Geerts Wilders are both big supporters of Israel. Undoubtedly having the global left go on a jihad for Hamas these past two months has been a massive boon for the right in these elections.
Geert Wilders is the original counter-jihad figurehead. He was still languishing in the polls until Hamas changed everything on October 7th. The Israel-Palestine war put immigration back into a first place concern.
As it turns out, having masses of foreigners hold marches calling for "Intifada!" in the streets for weeks before an election does wonders for right-wing populism and is devastating for the left.
The various leftists parties in The Netherlands barely cobbled together 25% of the vote.
What happens now? Before the election, centrist parties had softened on including Geert Wilders as a junior partner in a coalition, now nine years on from promising "fewer Moroccans" if people voted for him. He's been living under constant state protection for 20 years.
That pre-planned globalist plot has gone out the window as a centre-right coalition that would conduct business-as-usual cannot be formed.
A grand coalition with Green-Labour, liberal-conservatives (VVD), Christian-democrats (NSC), and liberal-democrats (D66) could be formed. This government would be unstable and quickly force fresh elections that would boost Geert Wilders into the stratosphere. To make matters more interesting, this accelerationist solution could be the best for the Dutch right-wing as forming a stable government is more difficult.
Geert Wilders must attempt to cobble together a working government with people who hate him. It would only require two other parties in the House (VVD and NSC), so could be fairly stable there. The Senate has bigger obstacles though, and he'd need a further 3-4 parties to cooperate. Three are sympathetic to his politics, but he might struggle to nail down the final few votes. Those friendly parties include the Citizen-Farmer Movement (from the protests), Thiery Baudet's Forum for Democracy, and another similar splinter party.
Negotiations with over half-a-dozen parties across two chambers will be immensely slow and difficult. I won't bore you by describing them all, but because you only need 0.7% to get into the Dutch parliament, you have over a dozen colourful parties representing every imaginable fringe constituency to choose from.
If Geert Wilders fails to deliver wins on immigration and nationalism for his voters again, then they will abandon him and he will be shut back out into the cold fringes of Dutch politics.
There's a lesson in that for the factions in our freshly formed government.