AD opinion diva Angela de Jong is being put through the wringer by a fellow columnist, namely Thomas Hogeling of the NRC. “It’s unnecessary interesting stuff,” he shouts.
Angela de Jong is central in the latest column by Thomas Hogeling, columnist at the NRC. “Angela de Jong hardly dares to say it, but she thinks exactly what most people think,” reads the headline of his piece. Since she stopped her TV bits, Angela writes a general column and, according to him, it is very disappointing.
Dog hater
It is of a deplorable level, says Thomas. “Time and again she announces that she is going to write something incredibly exciting, after which we are invariably presented with the first home-garden-and-kitchen idea,” he sneers. in the newspaper.
The columnist lists how often Angela uses sentences such as ‘I’ll be criticized for it’ and ‘you’re not allowed to say it out loud these days’. She recently had a column with the headline: ‘I would be better off writing something about Islam, Zwarte Piet or child hatred than the topic I choose today.’ What was in it? That she hates dogs.
Hundreds of thousands
Angela outdid herself last week with an opinion that she ‘didn’t dare to express out loud’ on a subject that she has ‘been avoiding for days’. The opinion in question? She wants a center-right coalition and no Jesse Klaver.
She soon shouts that opinion from the rooftops, Thomas cynically notes. “A few hours after the publication of her column, to be precise. Not whispering to her husband, but loud and clear at the table at Pauw & De Wit, with hundreds of thousands of viewers.”
Bad figure of speech
It is a ‘bad figure of speech’, says Thomas. “For starters, it’s a bit shabby stylistically,” he says. “But that’s not the biggest problem.”
These types of texts are ‘unnecessarily interesting’, he believes. “You act as if you are being silenced, while taking a very average position.”
Populism
Thomas believes that Angela is guilty of populism. “People like to read back their own boring opinions. So I understand that it is attractive to sell your vanilla point of view as taboo.”
“In this way you promote something predictable into something exciting, something to fight for. But it remains a revolution from the semi-detached house, a revolt from the corner sofa, a controversy like a kitchen island.”