On Wilders – The Economist:

‘Mr Wilders presents a political headache for the EU, a club used to moving forward by helping centrists of the left and right politely thrash out their differences. But in many ways the populists are melding the consensus rather than threatening to overthrow it.
A generation ago, merely including the hard right in a ruling coalition was enough to result in ostracism, as Austria discovered when its centre-right allied with the xenophobic Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in 2000. No longer. The idea of a “cordon sanitaire”—centrist parties essentially pretending populist foes don’t exist when it comes to forming coalitions—is breached routinely. In the Netherlands it may prove all but impossible to cobble together a coalition without the 37 seats (out of 150) of the Party for Freedom, the party Mr Wilders leads.’

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‘The chances are of further success for the hard right in forthcoming polls. The FPÖ is backed by 30% of Austrian voters, comfortably beating its rivals of the left and right ahead of elections next year. The Alternative for Germany is in second place at 21%, far ahead of any of the parties in the country’s existing three-way coalition, with important state elections due next year. Polls in Belgium show that one populist party is leading the pack and the other is joint second. Having narrowly come top in France’s election to the European Parliament in 2019, Ms Le Pen’s National Rally party now looks as though it will trounce Emmanuel Macron’s allies come the next such ballot in June. Ms Le Pen (pictured with Mr Wilders in 2019), is all but assured another slot in the French presidential run-off in 2027.
Would a Wilders administration tip the EU scale in favour of populist policies? In one important way, it already has. Restricting migration is the hard right’s clarion call. But centrist parties on both right and left have already shifted towards tougher policies in many countries, including the Netherlands. Germany took in over 1m migrants in 2015-16; these days its approach is much less welcoming.’

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‘And politicians with populist promises on the campaign trail have a tendency to moderate once in office, especially if they have to share power. Dutch coalition programmes are crafted over many months, leaving plenty of opportunities for centrists to force compromise. Ms Meloni was herself a firebrand who railed against the EU as a candidate; plenty were panicked when this once-avowed fan of Mussolini became prime minister a year ago. In fact she has surprised her European partners by hewing to the political centre on most issues (though not on social matters such as gay rights). Mr Wilders himself toned down his Islam-bashing as the vote neared, though critics argue that this was only cosmetic. Even if he makes it to the prime minister’s office, he is likely to be at the head of a minority government with partners who will want to restrain his worst urges.
“Even if Wilders ends up as prime minister, the thing about Dutch politicians is more that they are Dutch than they are of any political party,” says one EU official, perhaps evincing a degree of wishful thinking; Mr Wilders seems a different Dutch politician from any of his predecessors.’

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‘The Netherlands was among the first countries to see its political scene fragment away from “big tent” centrist parties of the left and right, starting in the 1980s. Dutch populists became a fixture of public life before that happened in most other countries. Plenty will worry that Mr Wilders’s victory is an omen, with more to come.’

Read the article here.

Mr. Wilders’ victory is not so much an omen for the Netherlands, but for the rest of Europe, and perhaps also for the West (Europe and the US).
The question is when and if the centrists will gain ground again.

The electorate consists partly of amateur pyromaniacs, and to be fair, history has always been a series of catastrophes with plenty of pyromaniacs.

It would be strange to think that European has been excluded from the catastrophes. History has not ended, as was wrongly predicted a few decades ago, except in Western Europe, there it has ended. Well, no, it’s just beginning, let’s put it that way.