Like a high-speed caterpillar, the FVD polonaise shot through social media last weekend. One posted by MP Pepijn van Houwelingen movie of fellow party members in white shirts at the congress in Zaandam was shared about seven hundred times. By people who joined in their thoughts, but often also in a giggly atmosphere, which in turn led to the comment that that party has long since ceased to be laughable and that mocking publicity is also publicity.
The thirteen seconds of FVD happiness NRC not. However, an article appeared on the site on Monday, November 29, which showed that not everyone in that party runs the same polonaise: Friction in the top of FVD: has Baudet had enough of Van Meijeren’s style? Following the congress, reporter Rik Rutten heard that party leader Baudet criticizes MP Gideon van Meijeren, who regularly flirts with the idea of violence against the state and intimidates an SBS journalist.
A reader was disturbed by the reports of, as she wrote, “petty quarrels and other internal nonsense within parties, in particular FVD”, despite “threats to colleagues by members and MPs of these parties”. She pleaded for restraint: “Do not pay attention to it, only if there is really no other option.” That ties in with the recurring call for one cordon sanitary around the Forum for Democracy, since Van Houwelingen last year threatened D66 MP Sjoerdsma with “tribunals”.
At the end of October, journalists Harm Ede Botje and Mischa Cohen (authors of the leading Baudet biography My opinions are facts) to take “his megaphone” away from Baudet: “So no stage, no interviews for Baudet, no tangle of cameras and microphones chasing him, no longer at the table in the talk shows.” As far as they were concerned, that did not mean that reporters should not investigate the party.
For ignoring Forum for Democracy feels NRC not, says Chief of Politics & Administration Guus Valk. “We have to take the party seriously as a political phenomenon. It is, however, an exceptional party. That is in the radical and provocative character. The commotion that arises after a provocation acts as oxygen.” After Baudet’s election victory in the Provincial States Elections (2019), Valk listed for colleagues what he believes are the pitfalls in FVD reporting. In addition, he warned against blindly paying attention to what he calls the “clowness” in the party. “Then you play the game that Baudet wants you to play.” It is better, he says, to explain to the reader how that game works. “That also concerns the role of the meme culture and the question of when a statement is meant to be ironic.”
In the past year, other parties have taken up a more emphatic battle with Forum and that is reflected in the reporting. “The party is a factor that disrupts democracy and that keeps other parties busy,” says Valk. “We also want to explain and provide context.” A big interview with Baudet would NRC not publishing any more soon, he says. This is mainly due to the large amount of disinformation he spreads. “Then you get a fight interview in which you should refute all untruths in the questions. That is not doing.”
In April 2021, the then ombudsman wrote from NRC Sjoerd de Jong that, in his opinion, FVD could be qualified as an extreme right-wing party. That suggestion has not led to widespread labeling in reporting. NRC FVD hardly ever mentions the extreme right. De Jong himself used the term again, he appeared in an editorial (“the extreme right-wing movement that she has increasingly become”) and in March there was once talk of “the extreme right-wing radicalization of Thierry Baudet”.
In the first years of his political career, Baudet was still the eccentric cuddly populist of many media, who was amicably referred to as ‘Thierry’ in talk shows. The polarization he evoked even then made him a magnet for viewers and readers. He still is, says Rik Rutten, who follows Forum for NRC. “Writing about Forum is scoring.” The reading figures can therefore not be a benchmark, he says. “I always try to ask myself whether something new is really happening and whether we are not being subjected to a fuss.”
Rutten also made that decision last weekend. He attended Forum’s congress on the assumption that he would not report on it. “I heard a speech in which Baudet called for restraint and later I understood that it was also specifically addressed to Van Meijeren. Then I started looking into it further after the weekend.” It also turned out that a speech by Van Meijeren was first not and then mentioned in the report on the party site. Rutten also spoke to Baudet, who openly talked about the differences of opinion. “You always have to consider the possibility that there is a situation with a good cop and bath cop is directed, but I have sufficient indications that in this case it is more.”
The near future will undoubtedly show this: after all, the history of the Forum of Democracy is very much like a conflict polonaise run with great dedication; although a storm in a glass of murky water is not excluded either.
Finally, a correction. In my about section The Betrayal of Anne Frank from last week also arrived de Volkskrant and the NOS and something went wrong there. I wrote that de Volkskrant apologized to the relatives of the notary Van den Bergh accused of treason. However, the newspaper did not do that.
Arjen Fortune
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A version of this article also appeared in the December 3, 2022 newspaper