The high word is out: Dilan Yesilgöz no longer wants to rule with the PVV. But, note: she finds GroenLinks-Pvda also very annoying. The PvdA was taken from the center of Dutch politics by GroenLinks, “said Yesilgöz on Monday in a piece on the VVD site. A scratch statement, because wasn’t the VVD torn from the PVV from the middle of Dutch politics? Last week, had Yesilgöz not said it was ‘completely agreed’ with the ‘ten -point plan’ by Geert Wilders, including the denaturalizing people who have been living in the Netherlands all their lives?
Good, back to the piece. On that scratchy statement follows a paragraph about GroenLinks-Pvda: “This is how we see radical-left support for campus occupations with all the destruction and costs, it is said by some that October 7 was an act of resistance, and violence is therefore nuanced when it fits in the ideological street. This is what the Radicals want the movement in the Netherlands the movement in their lives in their lives in their lives in their lives must get. “
A confusing text. Which people within GroenLinks-PvdA support the destruction on campuses, and how much influence do they have? Who say that October 7 was an act of resistance? Not the party leadership, in any case. And who demands that ordinary, hard -working Dutch people adjust their lives? In which area? Is it still about support for Hamas, or has Yesilgöz strayed to other ‘radical’ requirements such as vegetarian food and less flying? And how exactly is that demanded? Rationally, there is no rope to tie this paragraph: it is an insult to anyone with an IQ over 70. It raises the question of what is going on with the liberal party, who has always presented itself as a child of the Enlightenment.
Just to be clear: I am not a VVD hater. I have always been interested in liberalism, and I once have twenty -five volumes for my bachelor’s thesis of Liberal Reveil plowed, the magazine of the scientific office of the VVD. That is precisely why I am extra surprised about the dédain for thinking, it appears from texts like this.
On Tuesday morning it became clear what was going on: since 2016, the VVD is no longer aiming for the ratio, but on the intuitive part of our brain. Former campaign strategist Bas Erlings told in NRC About this strategy, based on the work of the behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman. According to Kahneman, two systems are active in our brains, the fast and slow. The vast majority of decisions are made by system 1, the area of emotions, intuition and autopilot. System 2, which of the ratio, is only switched on if system 1 does not work out. The slow system often searches for arguments after what it has already decided.
Based on these findings, Erlings designed the ‘Pleur Op’ campaign, culminating in the letter ‘to all Dutch’, which was printed in various newspapers in early 2017. “Sometimes it seems like nobody is doing normally anymore,” wrote Mark Rutte, after which he vaguely hinted at newcomers who ruin the atmosphere here. There was nothing further concrete, but that did not mean the letter, writes Erlings in his book published this week The game of the populist: Rutte wanted to make its way to the fast brain. “We consciously opted for a sharp dichotomy, we versus be.” By vaguely referring to a threat to the ‘we’, Rutte managed to activate emotions as fear and put himself on the map as a leader with whom the country was in good hands.
Rutte won the elections in 2017 brilliantly. In retrospect, Erlings has double feelings about the polarizing campaign, he said in NRC“Because it is much clearer now what the consequences of polarization are, and how fast it can go.” Yet he stays that you do not win from populists like Wilders without the use of behavioral psychology. In his book he advises the campaign leaders of today to not activate emotions such as fear, but positive emotions such as hope and optimism. As a shining example, he calls Obama and, hold on, Jesse Klaver.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad: the man who put everything in 2017 to scare the voter, starts eight years later, when the whole debate revolves around fear, about the power of hope. A bit late, and addressed to deaf ears, based on the last writing of Yesilgöz.
There is one question that Erlings does not deal with. Can a campaign also focus on both thinking systems? In other words, is a strategy possible that plays the emotions, but does not raise a middle finger to the ratio? That should strive for a liberal party, who sees itself as a defender of reason and the free individual. Yesilgöz could articulate her aversion from the left in a way that cuts both rational and emotional wood. Instead, she takes such a rude shortcut to the fast brain that hopefully even thinks that fast brain: I don’t fall for this. Is there nobody at the VVD who finds this embarrassing?
Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC