The Dutch conservative mediacracy

Yesterday, the results of the parliamentary election in the Netherlands showed what already seemed to be brewing in the final few weeks before voting: a sharp turn to the right. While the liberal VVD remained a large party despite a heavy loss and the conservative NSC was the country's biggest newcomer in parliament since the beginning of the century, the election was dominated by the victory of right-wing PVV. For the first time, a far-right party gained more than twenty percent of the vote in the Netherlands. Understandably, it gained much international attention, and raised immediate concerns in Europe. Meanwhile, the left failed to score any significant success, shrinking considerably, despite a new fusion party of green and labour headed by prime ministerial candidate Frans Timmermans, an international heavyweight.

This is nothing new, per se: the Netherlands has long been a country that is conservative and right-wing by majority, seemingly always to the surprise of foreigners. For the past thirteen years, the country has eeffectively been under control of one large party, headed by neoliberal prime minister Rutte (VVD). Most of the time, due to the coalition building that is required to govern, the VVD has been supported by other parties. They are preferably conservative, too, but electoral results often necessitated the liberals to work with more progressive actors. This time, a right-wing coalition (again) seems inevitable. Meanwhile, there has never been a left-wing coalition government in Dutch history.

Despite the Netherlands objectively being one of the best countries in the world to live in, there is a certain unease within the country when it comes to the endurance of the current form of democracy. One part of this pertains to the politics: a lacking ability of parliamentarians to do their work (i.e., being able to monitor the cabinet’s governance and hold the government accountable for wrongdoing) and gridlock due to polarization. Another part is institutional: the inability of the government’s ministries and institutions, most notably the tax authorities (Belastingdienst), to implement changes and thus follow through on the wishes of parliament, especially because of the excessive complexity of tax and other systems.

Unease about these two elements is widespread, and it is the reason why the ‘culture of governance’ (bestuurscultuur) played—nominally—such a significant part in the election campaign. But another problem of the current democracy is the electoral component. If anything, this parliamentary election has shown how the electoral process is not working properly anymore. This has two reasons.

First, the process is probably too muddy. People vote for a party, but do not have much say over all the members of parliament that go along with that one vote, resulting in disconnect between voters and 'representatives'. It is why Pieter Omtzigt (NSC) proposes a partial electoral district system. Moreover, people vote for a party expecting its leader to be a prime ministerial candidate, resulting in a horse race election. This dynamic inevitably causes dissappointment, given that the Dutch system is not like the system of the U.S., where the presidential election is merely a binary choice between two candidates. This is why Omtzigt and others have proposed adding a leadership election, choosing the premier directly rather than indirectly.

Second, this campaign has demonstrated how election campaigns in the Netherlands increasingly resemble the ways in which U.S. electoral politics are conducted. Most importantly, this means a conservative mediacracy that guidelines public opinion and mocks any serious and substantive debate about long-term plans for the country.

A member of the SBS debate audience is allowed to ask the party leaders a question. It turns out to be Frank van Gool, the CEO of a controversial employment agency for migrant workers—and a big donor of both the VVD, one of the participants in the debate, and the debate leader himself.

The Holy Trinity of conservative media

The power of media in electoral politics is not new, but it has changed. First, because of the emergence of social media: like in the last few elections, the ways in which party leaders were actively present on, and passively portrayed as on social media were very important. It is how, for example, Forum voor Democratie has become more and more popular amongst young Muslims, despite their leaders' xenophobic rhetoric.

Second, there has now also emerged a combination of three influential conservative media which, during the campaign, showed its power of dominating the mediasphere. Together, they have had undeniable influence on the outcomes of the general election, and consequently the turn to the (far) right in the Netherlands. Even more, these media are not isolated: their contents are widely shared on social media, and key figures of these media are present in other media (especially talkshows) as well, further spreading their approach to the election.

This 'Holy Trinity' of conservative media consists of daily newspaper De Telegraaf, broadcaster WNL, and opinion show Vandaag Inside of the commercial tv channel SBS6. As a simple observer (I am certainly not a political scientist), I have been surprised by the ways in which they were able to shape the public conversation and steer the general trends in the election.

During the campaign, De Telegraaf stood out for its unrelenting assault on left-wing leader Timmermans and his GLPvdA party. As a conservative newspaper, this is not too surprising, but the frecuency of its negative publications on the left-wing party was remarkable nonetheless. Take, for example, the overview (below, left) of promoted articles on the paper’s digital front page, late October. Even more, the paper's political podcast, led by influential commentator Wouter de Winther, led every podcast episode (below, middle) during the campaign with an explanation why Timmermans and his party were failing. In this, De Winther's frequent schadenfreude was not so subtle. Moreover, De Winther—just like many other conservative commentators—has been a frequent guest in late-night talkshows, amplifying his well-known conservative bias. Unsurprisingly, De Winther during the campaign also starred as a frequent figurehead in WNL programs, as well as in Vandaag Inside. As such, De Telegraaf’s continuous negative rhetoric about GLPvdA reached a large audience, even beyond its large pool of readers. (To be clear: while De Winther is the most prominent exponent of the paper's bias, there are other, much more radical examples of this, too. This includes columnists Wierd Duk and Rob Hoogland, with the latter even threatening Timmermans in a July column (below, right).)

Second, the conservative public broadcaster WNL this year became a dominant force in the world of Dutch television talkshows. This is especially true for Op1, the daily late-night talkshow that is a collective operation of multiple broadcasters. During Summer 2023, the progressive broadcaster BNNVARA left Op1, which meant that only conservative broadcasters remained as organizers of the talkshow, effectively resulting in a “right-wing turn” of the most important talkshow of the country. Not only is the conservative bias visible in the talkshow’s tendency to invite conservative politicians, it is also visible in its agenda-setting and lines of questioning.

This is just as true for the other WNL-led talkshows—the daily morning shows (Goedemorgen Nederland), the Sunday show (WNL op Zondag), and the daily interview program on public radio (Sven op 1). Indeed, WNL has succeeded in taking over most of the public broadcaster's (NPO) talkshows, giving the NPO a determinedly more conservative flavour. There are ample concrete examples of the implications. For example, on the last Sunday before the election, in which (of course) VVD leader Yesilgöz was the main guest, a conservative commentator was allowed to trash Yesilgöz' main competitors, especially Timmermans, before giving the floor to the interviewer for a rather softball interview with Yesilgöz herself. This clear bias surprised political journalists. Taken together, the conservative WNL has an unhealthily large share in the opinion shows of the public channels on Dutch television.

Third, these conservative talkshows on the public television channels have been supplemented by the Netherlands’ most popular television show, Vandaag Inside. Formerly a football talkshow, it has morphed into a general opinion show in which three permanent hosts sit at a table and express their opinion on everything—whether they are knowledgable about the subject or (as is more common) not. The members of the show are outspoken about their political inclinations, which are right-wing, giving the show another distinctly conservative flavour.

Several analyses have demonstrated that the electoral preferences of the members of Vandaag Inside (especially its head-of-the-table, Johan Derksen) have an influence on public opinion, and perhaps even the outcomes of elections. Earlier this year, Derksen and co were big supporters of Caroline van der Plas (BBB), who subsequently won the provincial elections in March 2023. (In the lead-up to the election, a more moderate, temporary guest was cancelled after his first appearance at the show when he expressed criticism of Van der Plas.) During the campaign for this Fall's general election, Vandaag Inside made clear it no longer supported BBB, instead looking towards Yesilgöz more favourably. Even more, it trashed Timmermans (GLPvdA) while normalizing Wilders (PVV).

Geert Wilders addresses Pieter Omtzigt during the SBS6 debate.

Case in point: the Gamechanger Debate

Vandaag Inside became even more political in the final two weeks of this campaign, when it not only hosted four party leaders in its show, but also organized an official election debate—the first on the SBS6 channel. It was led by the VI host, Wilfred Genee, and supplemented by an episode of VI directly following the debate, in order to review the performances of the invited party leaders. Ratings showed that the SBS6 debate was the campaign's most-watched debate, while the review afterwards was watched even more.

During the final days of the campaign, opinion pollsters already drew the—problematic—conclusion that the debate was a ‘gamechanger’ in the dynamics of the electoral horse race. While it was a chaotic, substantively shallow debate, research showed that many viewers saw one clear winner: Geert Wilders (PVV), who had participated in a larger debate for the first time. Consequently, his party surged dramatically in the following opinion polls. Opinion pollster Maurice de Hond, not without his own controversies, stated that in the past few decades, he had rarely seen such a strong movement in voting preferences as that he had observed after the SBS debate. The debate, indeed, was pivotal in the rise of Wilders.

  But the debate was very flawed. It lacked proper, substantive debate; it was led by a presenter who had clearly adopted a crash-and-burn manner of moderating the debate, intervening so infrequently that discussions quickly devolved into unhelpful shouting matches. The host also declined to intervene whenever obvious mistruths were spoken or one of the party leaders bullied another. For a debate of such importance, however, the most important problem was its apparent bias towards two participants—the VVD and the PVV.

While the attitude of SBS6's Vandaag Inside was already remarkably favourable towards the VVD and especially the PVV before the debate, the set-up of the debate raised additional questions. First, the moderator allowed a question of an audience member who turned out to be Frank van Gool (first image), a CEO of a controversial employment agency for migrant workers. Moreover, he is one of the biggest donors of the VVD; Yesilgöz had to admit Van Gool had her phone number. (Of course, there have been questions why Van Gool had gained permission to appear at the debate. It does not help that he is a donor of the debate moderator's radio show, too.)

Van Gool used his allotted time wisely: after the moderator mentioned his donations to the VVD, he explained how good that party indeed was, before stating the advantages of labour migration (something, if anyone, he himself has profited of the most, not the migrants themselves). While the moderator did mention Van Gool's ties to the VVD before handing him the microphone, he did not intervene during his promotional talk. Afterwards, several party leaders stated their disapproval.

The moderator was not done yet: when the debate turned to the issue of poverty, he allowed another audience member to speak. Explaining the difficulty of paying the yearly care deductible (eigen risico), she asked what the party leaders could do to help. When Timmermans explained his plans to gradually abolish the deductible—which, given his social democratic policy platform, supposedly were right up her ally—the woman was remarkably dismissive, shaking her head repeatedly, until Wilders took over.

The woman appeared to be holding Timmermans responsible for the deductible policy, despite him not being part of the government for the past years; she was not receptive to his plans for helping her, either. Instead, when Wilders took over, she started nodding and applauding. Wilders said that he wanted to abolish the deductible "immediately", not gradually, while not offering an explanation how he would be able to do that. Instead, he transitioned into an ad hominem towards Timmermans for his retainer (wachtgeld), despite Wilders himself earning a big salary for decades as member of parliament. The audience applauded; Timmermans' proposal to slash the care deductible was completely overshadowed.

The conduct of the woman raised eyebrows. And indeed, a few days after the debate, it became clear that she was a long-time PVV supporter who had previously met Wilders (at least once on a plane, heading to Hungary) and had publicly promoted candidates on the PVV list for the upcoming election. She was, in other words, not a neutral audience member, but someone for whom acting disapproval towards Timmermans and approval towards Wilders was politically motivated. And it worked: both her words directed against Timmermans and the subsequent personal attack by Wilders were widely spread on (conservative) social media, including in the Vandaag Inside aftershow, amplifying Wilders' success and stimulating his rise in the polls. The debate organizers later admitted that they knew beforehand of the woman's political affiliations, but "did not feel the need" to inform the tv audience.

So who organized this debate, which was so pivotal in the campaign, besides SBS6/Vandaag Inside? For some reason it was produced by Jeroen Pauw, a well-known former talkshow host. Pauw himself appeared multiple times as a political commentator at talkshow tables during the campaign, while not actually being a political commentator, and repeatedly reviewed debates and talkshow appearances that he himself had produced. Perhaps even more problematically, Pauw's antipathy towards Timmermans (GLPvdA) is well-known, and he indeed did not shy away from trashing Timmermans multiple times during the campaign. As explained in a recent podcast on media dynamics, Pauw's frequent appearances as opinion maker on television during the campaign were dubious at best. In any case, his production and personal appearances fit right into the direction of the conservative media's Holy Trinity.

Wary of the traditional election debates on television, Pieter Omtzigt (NSC) and Frans Timmermans (GLPvdA) organized their own debate on 30 October. The debate was praised for its substantive discussions and calmness, although some commentators found it "boring".

 Hilversum, we have a problem

This collection of conservative media and its agenda-setting power is not necessarily problematic. What is problematic, however, is the absence of a balanced media environment in which the conservative media are balanced out by progressive media—say, an influential progressive talkshow, an unabashedly left-wing broadcaster, and a progressive equivalent of VI. There are some bland examples, but the truth is that those progressive forces in media seem to be afraid of being called out for their progressivism and accused of bias; and thus, they appear adamant to be even more critical of left-wing and progressive political actors in their attempt to seem unbiased and professional. This does not matter, of course: commentators, especially on social media, still accuse these media of being biased, which makes them even more concerned of appearing biased—a vicious cycle in which progressive media seemingly engage in a sort of self-censoring in order to appease right-wing activists.

In effect, this causes a complete lack of balance in the media and opinion landscape, which tilts heavily towards right-wing political parties. It happened in 2019, when radical right-wing Forum voor Democratie became the country’s largest party in provincial elections; it happened in March 2023, when the right-wing, pro-farmer BBB floated towards massive electoral victory on a bed of positive media attention (news media only after the election began questioning what BBB actually wanted to do, and how); and now, it happened not only with the PVV, but also NSC, whose leader has been cynically called ‘Holy Peter’ for a reason—namely, the perfectly uncritical reception he received in the media for most of the campaign. And, at the same time, the negative reception of Timmermans caused resentment towards the left-wing leader to reach such proportions that strategic voters fled to the PVV in large numbers.

When the conservative bias in the media is as influential as has been the case in this election cycle, it indeed resembles the rise of mediacracy. Without the Holy Trinity, Timmermans (and earlier, Sigrid Kaag (D66)) would not have been despised so obsessively; and without the Holy Trinity, Wilders would have not been so normalized and portrayed as 'moderate'. Without the large influence of the (uncritical) media, Omtzigt would not have been received so heroically. Yesilgöz would likely have had more trouble earlier on. This all is also a problem of quality, of course. Good, critical journalism has been rare throughout the campaign. It is questionable how well-informed voters' choices have been.

This dynamic resembles the media environments in countries where Ropert Murdoch and his Fox network dominate, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. The likelihood of a Wilders government slashing the NPO budget would leave even more room for such a scenario in the Dutch mediasphere. It would further weaken the objective provision of information to the Dutch public, which, after all, is the NPO's reason to exist. This, then, would further embolden populist voices.

As such, much work needs to be done. This needs to include an immediate re-assessment of the NPO and the current lack of ideological diversity in its talkshows. More broadly, there should be a serious discussion how to complement the conservative bias in media with stronger progressive voices, to guarantee balance. This, ultimately, is also to the benefit of the wider political spectrum, not just the left-wing electorate. A broad range of voices and space for substantive discussion, without a few influential opinion makers declaring their preferences or debates with biased audiences or producers, would make campaigns in the Netherlands more meaningful and useful. Less hype, more substance. Of course, this also means an end to the enormous influence of the country's three opinion pollsters, who very likely have caused more movement in this year's electorate than any politican was able to. The democratic value of their power is very debatable.

Voters have to make proper decisions when voting. They have to reflect on their own ideology, their own vision for the country's future, and they have to make an effort to understand what the political parties have to offer them. This is how a representative democracy functions. In that dynamic, there does not need to be such space for conservative kingmakers.

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