Hermit wrote:Hermit wrote:Forty Two wrote:Hermit wrote:Forty Two wrote:The point is, it looks like PVV is still trending up, and getting more and more seats each election.
That is factually wrong. The PVV gained 5 seats in this election, but it lost 9 in the previous one. I pointed this out to you
here. Are you into alternative facts? It seems to be something right wingers are particularly fond of.
They gained 5 seats, and the VVD lost 8 or 9. The other parties have fewer seats, in the last article I looked at, than the PVV, making the PVV the party with the second most seats. That sure looks like a good result for them. They've never had more than 24 seats.
Ahem.
Forty Two wrote:...they had a peak and a setback, their trend is upward from their inception to date. No party has exclusively a straight line up -- over time, even a party gaining influence will have a jagged line.
Exactly. Your assertion that the PVV is getting more and more seats each election is factually wrong. As for general trends,
every party starts with zero parliamentary members at one stage. So, as long as it has any sitting members at all, its overall trend is always upwards. You insist to somewhat inaccurately call the difference between one election and the next a trend. That's OK with me, as long as you acknowledge that the PVV still has not quite recovered from its previous "trend", where it lost nine of the seats which it had won in the elections before that.
Forty Two wrote:...people advancing a proposition bear the burden of supporting it with evidence
Like when they propose that the PVV is getting more and more seats each election. The ball was in your court then, don't you think?
Well, they got 9, then 24, then 15, then 20, so, however, you want to characterize that, it certainly doesn't seem as if they're dead in the water. The average goes 9, 16.5, 16, 17, so, their moving average number of seats is trending up. 9 seats first election, and draw a line to 17, which is the moving average. It is trending up. Obviously, not by much, but up. let's say they get 22 seats next election, their moving average goes to 18, still trending up.
This point, though, is another example of folks simply pedantically trying to grab onto something to insult me. We all can see the number of seats they one, and the point under discussion was whether they are "dead" and whether this was a "loss" for them. I really can't see how they would be anything but pleased with the result. They are right in the mix, and have shown some staying power over several elections. The trend is up for them.
The only legitimate argument I've heard so far is from Dutchy who points out that right now none of the other parties want to deal with Wilders or include him in a coalition. That may as may be. But, it doesn't make them dead. Parties will become willing to work with him, if he can be the key to their ruling coalition. So, perhaps not this election, but if the PVV breaks away from the pack next election, and, say, the VVD drops a few more seats, and the PVV goes up, it may be that some iteration of a coalition allows one of the other non-VVD parties to rise to greater prominence, if they include the PVV....that temptation is common in politics. I, of course, recognize Dutchy may be right in saying that the Dutch have gone beyond such politics and that there are no circumstances where parties will join with Wilders.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
