@gideonrachman.bsky.social s interview with Mathias Döpfner is highly nuanced & insightful. The Netherlands has had almost 25 years of allowing extremists in debate (Pim Fortuyn) and that does indeed help expose the lack of ideas on the extremes. on.ft.com/4bb64z6 via @FT - ThreadSky

felixdrost.bsky.social • 3 days ago

@gideonrachman.bsky.social s interview with Mathias Döpfner is highly nuanced & insightful.

The Netherlands has had almost 25 years of allowing extremists in debate (Pim Fortuyn) and that does indeed help expose the lack of ideas on the extremes.

https://on.ft.com/4bb64z6 via @FT

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blueskyeria.bsky.social•3 days ago

Döpfner: "We should take Trump seriously, but we should not take him literally ... then this is the invitation to dance"

"whole Russia-Ukraine topic is a kind of test case with regard to Trump’s actions."

Only a question of time, when Döpfner dancing 'he should never started it'.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

anthonyzach.be•3 days ago

How’s it doing on preventing the participation of the far right in government?

felixdrost.bsky.social•2 days ago

Kept them out for 25 years, limited their vote to 20%. Moderated their position to fairly reasonable. What have you heard?

anthonyzach.be•2 days ago

I heard that VVD chased their positions for years, radicalising political discourse in NL, before finally not ruling out working with them and so giving a bunch of racists the chance to ride into government on the back of "fuck the system" voters that they will now betray. And I thought it was odd

anthonyzach.be•2 days ago

because that's exactly what I saw happen in the UK, and Italy, and what is happening in France. And then I thought of the paradox of tolerance and realised that the cordon sanitaire was an excellent idea, whatever Mathias Döpfner thinks.

anthonyzach.be•2 days ago

The fundamental issue of "exposing the emptiness of far right ideas" is that it hasn't ever worked, anywhere, ever, because people who vote for those parties don't care that the ideas are empty. And in framing those ideas, they set a tone of hostility, anger and bitterness that infects politics.

chwb.bsky.social•2 days ago

Nuanced yes, but his claim that it was “taboo” to have AfD politicians in talk shows until a few weeks ago is preposterously disingenuous. They have been talk show staple more or less since the party’s inception, and since then, they‘ve been pushing precisely this talking point to great effect.

anthonyzach.be•2 days ago

And now we are faced with a US administration that insists on free speech for the far right and censorship for everyone else we should wake up and realise that this is also what the European far right want. All their whining about free speech is "free for me but not for you".

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