Tim's perspective

Democracy and me

A historic victory: 37 seats for the PVV. A wiser person would have adjusted their worldview following the Brexit referendum and Trump’s victory, but that scares me. In the Netherlands too there is a broadly held right-wing sentiment that I find hard to identify with. It’s time to talk about democracy.

My support for democracy appears to be fluid. When I read that the majority of secondary school pupils would vote for the FVD, my enthusiasm for young people’s right to vote waned somewhat. At parties, I increasingly hear conversations about who should actually have the right to vote. I take part in these conversation, in fact I’m often the one who initiates them. It is my version of the storming of the Capitol, slightly less illegal but perhaps just as harmful to democracy. 

And I want to stop this. Not expressing my own political preference but totally dismissing a voice that I don’t agree with. I still believe in the importance of climate action and I don’t believe that a right-wing government will do a lot to help that problem, so I vote for the Left. I worry about the future. That doesn’t make me a better person, it just makes me a privileged person: in my own life I don’t expect to face that many problems over the next 50 years. I’m not a farmer, I’m not a parent on benefits, I own my own home.

I trust the system that has looked after me so well over all that time. So, here are my resolutions for this year: I’ll stop being so polarised in my views, I’ll no longer make jokes about taking away someone’s right to vote and I’ll no longer doubt democracy. In 2024, I’ll leave the exclusion of sections of society to the PVV.

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