Ready for a titanic battle between two faltering old men? All of America is under the spell of the faltering memory of 81-year-old Joe Biden – with media watching like birdwatchers with telephoto lenses traces of dementia. Meanwhile muddles his opponent Trump (77) carelessly mentions the names of presidential candidates he defeated and the order of world wars.
Worse, meanwhile, threatens the balance of four years of Biden – economic growth, infrastructure investments – disappear behind the horizon. Why crunch boring numbers when you can tick off funny slips of the tongue?
Something similar could be seen here in the TV talk shows about former Prime Minister Dries van Agt, but in reverse: a lot about the “precious” and “colorful” person, almost nothing about the (poor) performance of his cabinets. Anecdotes about Van Agt’s relaxed work ethic, his “putting into perspective” of politics and – of course – his artificially archaic language received a hint of nostalgic awe. A roguish Prime Minister on a racing bike, instead of one who falls off a skateboard. Even among the left, which once saw him and his companion Wiegel as a cigar-smoking Axis of Evil, sympathy set the tone, due to Van Agt’s long-standing, emotional commitment to the Palestinian cause.
Of course, the riots from his earlier period as Minister of Justice came along – the Three of Breda, the Menten case, the Bloemenhove clinic – but the question remained: what was the balance of his three cabinets, one of which was sitting out? And what has been the political significance of this “mystic” in politics (according to Joop den Uyl)? With his detached disdain for seriousness in The Hague, was he a shrewd skeptic or a populist avant la lettre?
His first cabinet (1977-1981) is regarded by some experts as one of the weakest after the war. The website Parliament.com notes that the financial and economic policy, in the worst crisis since the 1930s, completely ‘derailed’ and the cabinet has been ‘one of the worst performing’ of the past half century. The gentlemen had a nice time, but decisiveness was on a pilot light.
The achievements that were still there are also worth looking at again. This is how Van Agts appointed Deputy Prime Minister Wiegel a ‘minority policy’ on track with the aim of ‘mutual adjustment and emancipation’. Yes, later derided as left-wing multiculturalism. Constitutional revision, initiated by previous cabinets, was further helped along the way. And one came National Ombudsman.
Barely a word about it. After years of ideological emptiness, it apparently remains difficult to see politics as a democratic battle of ideas that must yield something, and not as a personalitycompetition, which at its best can entertain.
Sjoerd de Jong writes a column here every Thursday.