The Atlantic: 'This Is Exactly What He Wants': How Geert Wilders Won by Losing

In fact, according to Paul Wilders, losing the bid to become prime minister may be the optimal electoral outcome for Geert, who has campaigned on a platform of leaving the European Union, tolerating “fewer Moroccans,” imposing a “head rag tax” on hijab-wearing women, and paying settled Muslims to leave the Netherlands—promises on which it would be difficult to deliver. [...]

Paul spoke to me about what his brother was like as a child, how he developed into “the Dutch Trump” (as he is sometimes known today), and what’s next for him now that the elections are over. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length. [...]

Geert’s momentum may have slowed down, but those voters are still out there, just more dispersed than they were. I’m pretty sure he will try to draw those voters back and that might mean a rethink in how he expresses himself. Up till now he has behaved in a very, very extreme way. Whether or not to tone down the rhetoric is going to be a difficult decision for him. On one hand, he still won the four seats [in addition to the seats his party already had] by being extreme. On the other, the three or four seats he lost to the newer, smaller parties, he’s losing because those smaller parties have the same message but deliver it in a more toned-down way. He’ll have to formulate a strategy that will work to both keep the extremists and attract more moderate voters. [...]

Yes, he grew up when he went to Israel. He was 18, I drove him to the airport in Amsterdam. He’d wanted to go to Australia but settled on going to a kibbutz on the border with Jordan, by the Allenby Bridge, instead. He stayed there for two years. He had a hard time over there and that made a difference. In Israel he spent all his money in about a week. He lived like a king and [then] was forced to work. It was dangerous. And you could tell, after that. He came back a far more serious person, far more likable. He started looking for jobs and studying. I think the seed was planted there—the emotional and intellectual seed.

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