Monday’s Encounter with Snakes: CD&V Commends BoerBurgerBeweging’s Triumph, Yet the Party Lures Vlaams Belang Supporters?

The ink on the Dutch election results is less than a week old, but there is already a lot of speculation that the BoerBurger Movement will evaporate again in the next election, in favor of yet another anti-establishment alternative. With first Pim Fortuyn, then Geert Wilders, then Baudet and now BBB’s Caroline van der Plas, it does indeed seem as if the protest baton is going from hand to hand in the Netherlands. The fact that it is virtually impossible in our country for a party to emerge from nothing in the same way has a lot to do with the generous party funding here, which is almost entirely devoted to rewarding the status quo.