The Netherlands was, for decades, a bastion of Europe’s soft socialism. However, the disconnect leftist politicians had from the needs of their countrymen and the effects of a huge influx of Muslims have changed the country. Now, there’s a new sheriff in town.

When my mother was a little girl in Holland in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a conservative country with self-controlled but still famously tolerant people who were required, if they lived in Amsterdam, to scrub the stairs and sidewalks in front of their buildings. When Mom revisited Amsterdam in 1980, she was utterly appalled by the filth and decay we found. The last time I was there in 2012, the city was cleaner than in 1980, but I still found it an unsavory place outside of the core tourist areas.

In the modern era, the Netherlands has had the usual European leftist government. Beginning last year, the Dutch parliament announced it intended to cut back nitrogen emissions from farms by 30%. This would have meant that up to 11,200 Dutch livestock farmers would be driven out of business. There was even talk of turning the farms into refugee settlements. No wonder that, in March 2023, the recently formed Boer-Burger Beweging farmers’ party made a powerful showing in the Dutch parliament.

The Netherlands is also much less Dutch than it used to be. The Netherland’s population is currently almost 6% Muslim. Amsterdam itself has a Muslim population of 12%, a dangerous number for a free, civil society. In 2004, a Muslim assassinated Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker, for making a movie that offended the assassin’s sensibilities. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had worked with van Gogh on the movie, was threatened with death and had to go into hiding, as was Geert Wilders, a conservative politician who inveighed against Islamic immigration into Holland.

Image: Geert Wilders. YouTube screen grab.

While there are undoubtedly many lovely people of the Muslim faith in the Netherlands, Muslims generally have not been good neighbors. Bruce Bawer has written extensively about the violent homophobic, antisemitic, and anti-Christian hostility that Muslims bring to Holland, once known as a bastion of tolerance, as well as to the rest of Europe.

As even Wikipedia concedes, Wilders and his wife have paid a high price for taking a stand against unrestricted Islamic immigration (hyperlinks omitted):

Wilders is said to have been “deprived... of a personal life for his... hatred of Islam”. He is constantly accompanied by a permanent security detail of about six plainclothes police officers, and does not receive visitors unless they are cleared in advance, thoroughly searched, and escorted at all times. He lives in a state-provided safe house which is outfitted to be bulletproof, is heavily guarded by police, and has a panic room. He is driven from his home to his offices in parliament in an armored police vehicle, and wears a bulletproof vest. His office is located in the most isolated corner of the Dutch Parliament building, and was chosen because potential terrorists can get to it through only one corridor, making it easier for his bodyguards to repel an attack. He is married to Krisztina Wilders (née Márfai), a former diplomat from Hungary of Jewish origin. The restrictions on his life, he said, are “a situation that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”.

Sometimes, though, those who make the greatest sacrifices reap great rewards. Yesterday, Geert Wilders, whom the media insist on characterizing as “far right” (an insult), became Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and he apparently won by a landslide, probably with help from those farmers:

BREAKING: The Dutch Donald Trump Geert Wilders has won the election to be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands with a landslide margin

The result puts him in line to lead talks to form a new ruling coalition and become the country’s prime minister.

Yet another major loss… pic.twitter.com/wa5wfPTkQC

— George (@BehizyTweets) November 22, 2023

Coming on the heels of Javier Milei’s victory in Argentina, we may be seeing a sea change as countries around the world break free from the leftism and Islamo-philia that have been strangling them for so long. Time is running out, though, including here in America. The left’s goal is to destroy Western civilization. The race is to see whether leftists succeed or whether enough normal people realize what is happening and vote these monsters out of office before it’s no longer possible to do so.