whydoitweet

6 political leaders debated each other, and real people, during a 2.5 hour debate. Here are my poorly substantiated hot takes of the night:

Mark Rutte – Prime Minister – VVD (Liberal Conservative Party)

He survived the main debate topics between politicians, but looked uncomfortable with the energy topic, was caught out fabricating factoids several times, and looked a bit delusional in conversation with an actual voter (someone who was a heavy victim of the Orwellian phenomenon known as the 'toeslagaffaire'). For someone predestined to be the next PM, he did not necessarily do himself a favor.

Sigrid Kaag – D66 (Liberal Pragmatic Party)

Articulate and reasonable in many areas, and I traditionally align well with the points of D66. That being said, she was a little too academic and roundabout in her explanations, although she did her duty by calling out Wilders on the racism card. She was strong on the diversity point, but brought her personal experience a bit too late in the evening during the debate on vaccines. The granting freedoms to vaccinated people is a shaky point to defend however, as the efficacy of vaccines can vary per vaccine and per mutation...

Jesse Klaver – Green Left (Green Party)

Made very sensible points, and was excellent in the climate debate. His 'bringing the country together' points came sometimes across as a bit too precalculated, and some of his anecdotes felt a bit off target. But he did get more points across than most, and his mild emphasis on listening rather than shouting worked reasonably well in this debate. Of all the participants in the debate, he certainly was the one who was best able to make the current Prime Minister (Rutte) look off-key and a bit dated.

Wopke Hoekstra – CDA (Christian Conservative Party)

I've seen CDA leaders having worse evenings, but struggled not to portray himself as “Rutte Lite”, due a huge lack of differentiation with the VVD. He also appeared tone-deaf in the energy debate, attempting to make a case that building nuclear plants somehow would reduce CO2 emissions in the next few years. He had his highlight of the evening by making his single attack on the PM, criticising him for wanting to tax rich people but not companies. Looked completely ridiculous when trying to claim credit for proposing to start mass testing for COVID-19 1.5 weeks ago in the government council (it'd be a bit more awesome if he had done that 50 weeks earlier...).

Lilian Marijnissen – SP (Socialist Party)

Stuck partially to the classic socialist lines, but showed a more pragmatic and flexible side when going in one-to-one discussion with a games company director. Made some excellent hammer blows on diversity in politics, and she somehow managed to get her points across largely unhindered, and was clear-cut in her criticisms. Overall, she was one of the stronger performers in the debate, and may well have delivered herself extra seats. However, she did have a slight weak finish in the vaccine debate, where she appeared to deliberately misrepresent the main point from Kaag.

Geert Wilders – PVV (Populist Anti-Immigration Party)

Wilders has been in Dutch politics since the 2000s I believe, and this time he started early using his evergreen formula of offensive propositions. Tonight he proposed giving Black Pete a spot in the government, or perhaps even several. When confronted with a real-life Dutch muslim standing in front of him, he chickened out on his policy of de-islamisation because to keep going would probably even have scared off his die-hard voter base. He failed to make much headway on new topics that concern people, such as coronavirus, healthcare problems and how to recover from the economic blow. Must've been a somewhat frustrating evening for him overall.