That's indeed also the case in the Netherlands. The use of gross oversimplification for complex problems, but it gets you votes. Too many people fall for it.

But his rhetoric is crazy. It's filled with racism and hatred and meanwhile he wants to stop funding Ukraine, slash all cultural subsidies, stop climate policies and leave the EU. Idiot.

I'm Dutch and afaik right-wing media doesn't play a role. The reason is quite simple, it's because the previous coalitions lead by the neoliberal VVD have consistently fucked everyone who isn't rich (and even some who are). Especially the crises that they've caused have completely eroded trust in the previously big parties. Some of these issues I'll lost below.

In the northern province of Groningen houses started getting damaged die to earthquakes caused by government-funded natural gas extraction. The whole country got rich of of this for decades, but when the people of Groningen needed money to repair their homes they sometimes had to fight for years to get anything.

The tax agency started incorrectly marking people as fraudsters for claiming certain benefits, which often put these people in debt for thousands of euros. This has ruined the life's of hundreds of people, yet the government initially just ignored it. While these people lost everything they had, the government seemed to do everything it could to avoid paying or helping. At some point they did start paying and pretending to help, but for many victims this was simply too little to late.

And then there's plenty of other issues that erroded trust as well. Years of ignoring "the nitrogen problem" until it was too late and lead to all kinds of issues. The farmers (who are the biggest cause of this issue) suddenly become the target of the government, which they obviously didn't like. This caused huge protests and the rapid growth of parties like the BBB and probably also the PVV. And there's also a housing crisis, where buying houses is impossible.

In short: the previous normal coalitions kept fucking up, until people seemingly had enough. There were other alternatives to the PVV, but apparently voting on a right -wing extremist who has all the ideas is easier than voting left-wing for many people here. I hope the damage stays limited, but this is truly a dark day for our country.

Besides simple solutions, they also offer simple culprits for everything that is bad, where the default is usually some form of immigrant. But green/left activists are also a well-received target. Or the EU.

The same everywhere.

Also, any other party thinks it has to push a neoliberal agenda (except one or two). And, this agenda makes people vote for the far-right at the end.

In the Netherlands, they have the issue with the Mocro mafia and this doesn't help.

Things we knew were coming and the sole reason the government didn't do anything was because of the neoliberal idea that the market will solve all problems through the magic of capitalism. This has been true for the past 3 decennia now.

This is the best resumé.

Also, Russia is playing on it.

They don't like what they're told about it

This might be a factor, but it's far from being the only one. Spain has had a far right resurgence in recent years, which hasn't resulted in a far right party getting more than 13% of votes, but it's dragging the largest right wing party to its positions in matters of tolerance and environmentalism, and the immigration to Spain hasn't been too significant since 2009.

One thing that should be noted, is that Europe's far right and right wing populist problem pre-dates Trump. Often by decades.

Vlaams Blok (later Vlaams Belang), the Freedom Party of Austria, Lega Nord, the UK Independence Party, Law and Justice (Poland), Fidesz (Hungary), Front National (now National Rally), Alternative für Deutschland, etc.

Them being the biggest party is very much cause for concern. I remember Janmaat's party being just a general political laughing stock. It is not a total disaster. Yet.

The whole "there's only the winner and the loser" mentality goes way beyond politics in certain societies.

IMHO, even the tendency for seeking consensus in the Dutch society tends to differ from the far too prevalent adversarial spirit in many modern Western societies, especial anglo-saxon ones (certainly at least the US and UK).

But that's hardly the point.

Look, I am not saying Wilders is not a creep. But their success right now is despite him and his anti-constitutional viewpoints. There was room for a big populist party with mass appeal and they fill that void. And the media is misrepresenting his voters. I am not one of them, and would never be, but I do know quite a few of people that switched to PVV and they did so because they felt he would work to get the lower middle class and elderly a better standard of living, something all other parties seem to fail to deliver on.

Yes, I know. But I was not making the point the PVV are not promlematic. Read what I wrote.

My point was that the media is portraying his voters as rabit right-wing bigots, and that is simply not true. dangeourly he managed to appeal to the centre, and people that look for housing, healthcare and spending power without too much interest in his extreme rhetoric.