Thierry Baudet’s new book, Politics of the Healthy Mind, will soon be available. It is about time, because many lawyers and conservatives have been looking forward to it for a few weeks. Well since I have been able to read a review copy I can promise: that waiting will be rewarded. Politics of the Healthy Mind is not only a kind of biography of a new, adventurous, powerful political movement, but it also offers the reader solutions for the problems that have plagued our country for decades. Therefore it is one must read for everyone who is interested in politics, but especially for everyone who is right.
On the Forum for Democracy website the contents of the book are summarized as follows. “Politics of the Healthy Mind takes the reader along in building an unprecedentedly successful political renewal movement. From the foundation of the Forum for Democracy we follow the most important steps and speeches until the party became the largest in the country. The book offers the main arguments for the necessary social change of course, but can also be read as a declaration of love for European civilization in all its multicolored, depth and strength. ”
Normally you are of course a bit critical. Yes, it’s great that the people behind the book consider it a masterpiece themselves, but is that really the case?
The answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” As a reader you follow the construction, expansion and transformation of Forum for Democracy. For that reason alone it is a historical document. It all starts as an act of resistance; an act of resistance to the arbitrariness and arrogance of power. Baudet sees a danger in the continuous enlargement of the European Union. He explains what that danger is and then enforces a referendum.
The essays, speeches and articles in the book take us back to that time. We read how that discussion was conducted. Sometimes hard, but always using arguments. When we see how Baudet and Theo Hiddema are now treated, we can almost only long for that time.
Anyway. As we read about the fight against the megalomaniacal EU, we suddenly see an essay called “stop the dikastrocracy”. What? A few months ago, his haters pretended that he only just decided to use that term and then also purely for political reasons? Well no. “Stop the dikastocracy” dates from … November 2013. So Baudet has been calling this problem more than six, now almost seven, years. Important, but also frustrating. After all, the problem has not diminished in the meantime. The opposite may even be true. See Urgenda.
As far as the EU is concerned, here too the reader sees how Baudet a) has been naming the problems that have been going on for years and b) how he has been providing alternatives to the current state of affairs for so long. The game the EU rulers are playing in 2014, to name just one year in which Baudet went full-throttle in “We’re sleepwalking into a federal Europe,” is exactly the same as the game they’re playing right now.
“You start with open borders and free movement of capital. Then you are going to federalize a piece of criminal law, but not yet the corresponding political responsibility. It then becomes necessary – just as central fiscal discipline becomes necessary when having a single currency. For example, we sleepwalk into a federal Europe. Or as Jean-Claude Juncker aptly put it: “We keep going a little bit further, until there is no return.”
It is a paragraph that Baudet could have written today. And I haven’t even mentioned “For democracy! So against the EU! ”, Which I think is the best piece in the book about De Ramp that we call the EU. In paragraph after paragraph, Baudet analyzes that horrible project. A financial transfer of power. We don’t want that, but are forced upon us. Migration quotas that are imposed on us while the average Dutch person has just finished mass immigration. It just kept going then – just like now.
And then it comes. The announcement. “Do we want this – is it good for the Netherlands, is it good for democracy, for prosperity, for our money? We don’t think so – and that’s why we’re launching a new, Eurosceptic think tank: Forum for Democracy. ”
That was really the beginning.
Then we are not there yet. Because in June 2015, Baudet also touched on a subject that we are increasingly talking about today. He did this in a Preface to Van Dixhoorn and Van Houwelingen, Manifesto to the people of the Netherlands. The title of his ‘word’? “The tone of the debate.”
“One of the most vicious of these distractions” from the left-wing elites “is the mere speech and tone of the one who criticizes,” said Baudet, “often accompanied by the remark that the matter is” more nuanced. ” The mean thing about this debate trick is its tautological character. Anyone who is seriously concerned – who wants to raise an important problem – will inevitably strike an involved, emotional tone. If someone does not do that, he is also implausible. So it makes no sense to serve someone precisely because of that tone. But, so one smacks, c’est le ton qui fait la musique? Nonsense. In the first place, it is the notes that make the music. ”
It is unbelievable that Baudet spoke about this back in 2015, but that nagging about ‘the tone’ five years later is still the preferred method of attack on him and his party. In fact, in 2018 – a full three years longer – he sweeps the floor (also included in one piece in Politics of the Healthy Mind) with Alexander Pechtold, who has accused him of racism for the umpteenth time, leading Baudet to conclude that he no longer wants to debate with the then D66 leader.
And so we continue, year after year we see how Baudet develops and Forum for Democracy is slowly being created. On October 5, 2016, the big announcement will be made on the FVD website: “We are going to participate in the elections!” In the article, Baudet and his colleagues explain that their main agenda item democratic renewal is. Only because of this, they think, can something really change because only in this way can the voter take back power from the party cartel.
This is the moment when, also in the book, the political game really starts. There is a party congress, elections … Baudet approaches problems like a politician. Or not? Because, although it is in the articles and speeches somewhat it is noticeable that he has made the switch to the active politics is it not the case that we suddenly see a completely different Baudet. No, the political Baudet is clearly the same man as the activist and before that the academic Baudet. For example, I was particularly touched by his speech at the first party conference of FVD, about the motive of resurrection in Western culture. I will re-read this chapter much more often, especially if I am going through new developments in politics and am about to give up.
Because here Baudet emphasizes that his negative view of the current situation is by no means automatically negativism with regard to the future. The opposite is even true. “We need to bring about a European renaissance,” he said in January 2017, at that conference. That’s what Forum for Democracy went for – and what the party still hopes for.
Then we roll on to his maid speech in the House of Representatives; a speech in which he fearlessly attacks the media cartel, directly in the face of all those so-called above-us. If you reread it, now three years later, you will think to yourself again, “Yes, yes, yes!” Wonderful to read.
In the chapter “Kaag Calls for Dialogue”, Member of Parliament Baudet then discusses the views of D66, the cabinet, and with them from the entire party cartel on anyone who is somewhat immigration-critical.
“Met Samuel Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations in hand, we doubt Francis Fukuyama’s assumption that all cultures and religions will eventually converge. Is that racist or xenophobic or populist? Are we guilty of ‘dehumanization’ or ‘tribal identity thinking’ as Kaag thinks? Of course not. Wanting to curtail immigration in no way implies hating others or an angry fear-filled worldview. By having a group on whom your country will soon be, you can prevent a xenophobic immune response. And a vital national culture that is proudly propagated can welcome newcomers. ”
That’s how it is. And that cannot be repeated often enough.
Of course, “The owl of Minerva” speech is also part of the book. If you read that chapter quietly, without stress, you can only draw one conclusion: it is really bizarre that that victory speech in the Provincial Council elections caused a commotion at the time.
As far as the political part of the book, which will undoubtedly be the most important part for DDS readers. It may be, but I must say that the last part of the book – about Culture (and travel) – is incredibly inspiring. Baudet talks about Wagner, Chopin, music, art, literature… he takes us on a trip to the libraries of the big cities; especially in Europe, but also in Delhi, for example. It is a real pleasure to take in those chapters and let them work in on you…
Not only because it is so beautifully worded and described, but also because you realize that Baudet is the man much more than his critics would have you believe. This is a man who lives, who enjoys, and who understands that there is a direct link between art and culture on the one hand, and political and social developments on the other. Baudet is a man with Vision. A political vision, yes, but also a cultural, social and even an academic vision.
Unfortunately, we don’t see that often in politics anymore. Or actually: never again at all.
Politics of the Healthy Mind is available in two ways: for 39,95 euro you buy a signed copy, and for 24,95 you buy a regular, unsigned copy.
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