A single well-lobbed tweet can ignite his nation’s political scene for days. The peroxide-blond Dutch politician Geert Wilders was executing the Trump playbook long before the U.S. president started his insurgent campaign for the White House. Anxious to capture Wilders voters, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said this year that immigrants needed to work harder to fit into Dutch society or they should leave — a stark departure from a centuries-old Dutch tradition of acceptance. Although he dominates Dutch airwaves and political discussions, Wilders rarely grants interviews to the media, preferring to avoid tough questions by communicating through Twitter. Wilders has since slumped to second place, but only after the prime minister took on rhetoric that could have come from the challenger’s mouth.

Source: National Post March 12, 2017 21:33 UTC