In the stands at the debate on face masks, Thursday in the House, I regularly remembered that phrase from many government forms: delete what does not apply.
It was war in the heart of Europe, American conservatives cheered Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the unfree world was getting closer, and here, in the heart of democracy, it was about face masks.
But it was also too easy to declare this debate irrelevant. It was about elementary democratic principles: reliable information to the House, the administrative culture, the failure of the promised innovation therein.
In addition, it was also relevant on a more vulgar level: in the CDA I heard influential voices say the day before the debate that Richard van Zwol was right after all.
Richard van Zwol not only has a nice CV from The Hague: he is a member of the Council of State and was previously the most senior civil servant in the Ministries of General Affairs, Finance and the Interior. He is also chairman of the Scientific Institute of the CDA.
In that role, he said internally last year that after his weak election results, the CDA had no business in a coalition dominated by VVD and D66: Van Zwol argued for a role in the opposition.
And now that the most prominent CDA politicians, the ministers Wopke Hoekstra and Hugo de Jonge, have both been filleted in the House in two weeks, some CDA members think: if only we had listened to Van Zwol.
“We are the drain of Rutte IV”, you heard.
At the same time, there was something of orderliness that this week the youngest issue of Christian Democratic Explorationspublished by the same Scientific Institute, fell on the mat: a theme issue on ‘The Autocratic Threat’.
You thought: apparently at that institute they clearly see which hierarchy applies at this time.
About fifteen years ago, Rod Dreher, a conservative opinion editor at the Dallas Morning Newsname in American media with his quest to renew the conservative agenda. It was the twilight of President George W. Bush (2000-2008), Facebook was only two years old, and Dreher described in a best-selling book that conservatives also loved organic chicken, protected nature and embraced diversity.
So I glanced up when I saw the same Dreher, now senior editor of The American Conservativereacted Monday to the umpteenth victory of Putin’s ally Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian elections (which of course also campaign support received from Donald Trump).
“Make no mistake”, wrote dreher. “Orbán is now the leader of the West – the West that still knows what the West is.”
So he had gone through quite a bit of development. The conservative, who once sought affiliation with the progressive way of life, now had other priorities. In a overview piece from 2020 with more American Orbán admirers, he explained it this way: Far better than Trump, the Hungarian Prime Minister protects the importance of Christian values towards the super-rich and international business on cultural issues (migration, abortion, religion, etc.).
Dreher was not blind to the autocratic or anti-democratic tendencies in Orbán’s operations. But he attributes that only to a secondary value: he and more influential American conservatives think the fight for cultural identity is simply too important for that.
Orbán admiration also rears its head in the Netherlands. Four years ago, former CDA politician Dzsingisz Gabor, Hungarian by birth, already defended him in NRC“The criticism of Orbán is ridiculous.” Geert Wilders (PVV) is also a fan and congratulated him this week. Derk Jan Eppink (JA21) wrote: „The voter spoke (-). Move on!”
In the US, the desire for a strong man has been dormant for much longer (Trump’s election is 2016), in the Netherlands much less, but the moment for Orbán worship is of course special.
With the Russian war for Ukraine’s free choice hitting the heart of Europe, it is quite a decision to define Putin’s closest ally in the EU as a friend or leader of the West.
And the question that lies below is where all this libertarian relativism, this declining sense of democracy, comes from.
The LA Review of Books recently had a interview with science historian Justin EH Smith, in which he argues that the internet is educating people with a reality of lack of freedom. Spotify takes over your choice of music, social media does not stimulate debate but suppresses it, people interpret their lives and destinies as the outcome of algorithms created about them.
All this in the context of the attention economy: companies that keep consumers on the screen for as long as possible.
It gives people the experience of being “too weak, lazy and unambitious” to resist the online addiction that is taking away their freedoms, Smith said. In my translation: the experience that freedom is in fact deception.
And then it is perhaps not illogical that the debate in The Hague about the war also took a surprising turn in a few weeks: the choice it entails – democracy or authoritarianism – was reduced to questions about the household wallet: energy bill, inflation, purchasing power. As if nothing bigger is at stake.
It reminded me of those people behind that Ukraine referendum in 2016, who still believe they were helping democracy. Give Putin a push, Pepijn van Houwelingen (“there will be tribunals”) of the EU Citizens’ Committee and Thierry Baudet (Putin is “a gorgeous guy”) of the then think tank FVD a national podium, and then maintain that “save democracy” is an adequate slogan used to be.
But the painful thing about this week was that the face mask debate showed that the cabinet’s democratic ambitions are no less swollen.
If a prime minister has promised a government with ‘new impetus’, if he said he has ‘radical ideas’ about administrative reform; when a deputy prime minister has promised ‘new leadership’ and a ‘new governance culture’, this in a formation of almost a year, it is quite strange that the first debate with a beleaguered minister culminates in a defense with to the wire worn-out tricks: incomplete information to the House (“my sincere apologies”), delay (“wait for Deloitte’s investigation”) and play on words (“I was involved but not in the deal”).
Such lofty ambitions and then such a vulgar outcome: it is quite a venture.
And the result is that Rutte IV also threatens to deprive himself of the opportunity to present the war again as a struggle for values. Not as a choice about energy or purchasing power, but as a choice between democracy and advancing lack of freedom.
Precisely that requires a certain democratic loftiness: the willingness to pay a price for one’s own promises and principles. And if a government cannot deliver in the very first crisis, after a year full of big words in this area, it must take into account that it also contributes to a declining national sense of democracy.
So strike out what doesn’t apply? A cabinet that forgets its own good intentions so quickly naturally runs the risk that people will say: then do Rutte IV yourself.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of April 9, 2022