Elections in various countries

[Ares Land]

The news are generally stressful, alas, and I found that the media generally have an incentive to make things sound as dire as possible.

I've tried to find ways to alleviate the effect. I don't suffer from doomscrolling too much, but reading about the impending fascist upheaval followed by WWIII on a rainy monday morning can be a bit much.

I find there's a hierarchy, social media is most stressful, followed by television. Newspapers and the radio are somewhat better. Then you have to pick a source.
Local papers or the radio can be more peaceful. You get the usual panicking over the international situation, but in between articles about mushroom season and people stealing nuts. I find that they tend eagerly report on any sort of local crime and be overdramatic about it though.
Other than that, I get news from a very highbrow and intellectual radio station. Much of their programming goes way above my head, but hey, at least, it expends my mind a little. They do panic a lot about international news, but it takes a bit of work to figure out what exactly they're panicking about, so it's less immediately stressful, plus usually I get to learn something.

[Raphael]

I find there's a hierarchy, social media is most stressful, followed by television. Newspapers and the radio are somewhat better. Then you have to pick a source.

In her case, it's pretty much all a phone news app connected to a high-middlebrow radio station and the website of the country's best-known traditional TV news outlet. She doesn't really use media that aren't integrated into her laptop or phone anymore, except books and newspapers. Then again, she's not on any public social media.

Local papers or the radio can be more peaceful. You get the usual panicking over the international situation, but in between articles about mushroom season and people stealing nuts. I find that they tend eagerly report on any sort of local crime and be overdramatic about it though.

Oh, here the local paper is almost all about mushroom season and people stealing nuts. They seem to assume that their readers get their information about what's happening in the country and the world elsewhere. It only arrives once a week, though (they recently cancelled the Wednesday edition), and it doesn't take that long to read.

[WeepingElf]

My preferred source for news is a high quality German news portal, which I check about twice a day. And I avoid delving too deep in bad news. I need not know every detail about the war in Ukraine, for instance; what I know about it suffices to build my personal opinion on it.

[Raphael]

My preferred source for news is a high quality German news portal, which I check about twice a day. And I avoid delving too deep in bad news. I need not know every detail about the war in Ukraine, for instance; what I know about it suffices to build my personal opinion on it.

Well, that's the one I was talking about, and where she does a lot of her doomscrolling.

[rotting bones]

Board Game Arena can find opponents for you online in a wide variety of games. Book clubs are the stereotypical hobby for old ladies. Maybe a literary magazine?

[WeepingElf]

My preferred source for news is a high quality German news portal, which I check about twice a day. And I avoid delving too deep in bad news. I need not know every detail about the war in Ukraine, for instance; what I know about it suffices to build my personal opinion on it.

Well, that's the one I was talking about, and where she does a lot of her doomscrolling.

I understand. It does not only matter which news outlet you follow, but also in which way you do so. It is not really meaningful to check it more than once or twice a day, as there is only so much of relevance that happens in the world, and then, there are things you need not know every detail about.

[Raphael]

The Irish presidential election is, barring unforeseen disasters or something, on Friday. The leading candidate, Catherine Conolly, seems to be some kind of tankie, who visited Syria back when Assad was still in power.

Counting is going on, and everything looks like Connolly will win in a landslide. Humphreys has conceded, and political opponents are congratulating Connolly. However, it looks like turnout was really low, and also like, among people who did turn out, there was a record high of spoiled ballots. That indicates that really a lot of people would have wanted to vote for a hard-right candidate and were angry that none of the hard-right would-be contenders managed it to get nominated.

[Ares Land]

Milei's party did well in the midterms. Not very pleasant news.

[Raphael]

Milei's party did well in the midterms. Not very pleasant news.

"He crashed our economy, so let's reward him!" Ugh.

[lëtzeshark]

In random news in the Netherlands (who voted Wednesday), the current exit polling shows a surprising first-place result for the center-left D66 party (first time ever they've come in first place!). Geert Wilders' far-right PVV ended up in second despite pre-election polling putting them in or tied for the lead. VVD (the center-right party of longtime former PM Mark Rutte) ended up outperforming expectations and ending up in 3rd, while the Green Left–Labor alliance performed below expectations (the pre-election polling put them neck-and-neck with PVV) and the CDA (Christian Democrats) ended up in fifth, going from 2 seats in 2023 to 19 projected seats now.

Final results are to come, but the final results aren't normally too far off the exit poll. What's a bit unusual here is that no party ended up with more than 20% of the seats in the House of Representatives: D66 is projected to have only 27 seats out of the 150 (after getting 9 in 2023).

The coalition looks numerically quite clear: based on numbers, D66, CDA, GL–PvdA, and VVD probably can make a coalition with 89/150 seats, but whether or not they can do so easily is a different story. Fifteen parties all look to have gotten enough votes for at least one seat in the House (though only five parties are due to have more than 10 seats), and one of the former government parties lost all their seats. So... quite an unusual outcome, and let's see how easy coalition building in the coming months will be!

[Raphael]

D66 with a plurality? How on Earth did that happen?

[Raphael]

While we're on the topic of Dutch politics: why does a centrist political party have a name that sounds like the name of a French hip hop group or an anarchist cell?

[Travis B.]

While we're on the topic of Dutch politics: why does a centrist political party have a name that sounds like the name of a French hip hop group or an anarchist cell?

Is it the '66' that does it?

[Raphael]

While we're on the topic of Dutch politics: why does a centrist political party have a name that sounds like the name of a French hip hop group or an anarchist cell?

Is it the '66' that does it?

Yes.

[WeepingElf]

While we're on the topic of Dutch politics: why does a centrist political party have a name that sounds like the name of a French hip hop group or an anarchist cell?

Is it the '66' that does it?

Yes.

Apparently, the party was founded in 1966 to breathe new life into the Dutch democracy which was then plagued by a gridlock between the left and the right, hence "Democraten 66".

[lëtzeshark]

Is it the '66' that does it?

Yes.

Apparently, the party was founded in 1966 to breathe new life into the Dutch democracy which was then plagued by a gridlock between the left and the right, hence "Democraten 66".

That's how the story goes, anyways, and the name's stuck.

D66 with a plurality? How on Earth did that happen?

My guess is that they had the advantage of not being in the current government plus the party leader (Rob Jetten) running a very good campaign.

Anyways, now that the dust has settled, there have been a few changes in the preliminary exit poll, but not hugely so, and there's still a nonzero chance of the final seat total changing, primarily for D66.
D66 (center-left): 26 seats, 16.9%; +17 seats
PVV (far right): 26 seats, 16.8%; -11 seats (previous government)
VVD (center-right): 22 seats, 14.2%; -2 seats (previous government)
GL-PvdA (green/left alliance): 20 seats, 12.7%; -5 seats
CDA (center-right, Christian democrats): 18 seats, 11.8%; +13 seats

As a result, it's likely Rob Jetten (D66 leader) will get the first attempt to form a government, and, if he's successful, he would become the Netherlands' youngest prime minister (as well as the first openly gay one). Even were PVV to have come out on top, the chances of them forming a government would have been extremely slim after what happened with the previous government.

Other notable things include that, out of the parties which ran, only five got more than 10 seats (and also more than 10% of the vote). Frans Timmermans, the lijsttrekker of GL-PvdA, resigned as chairman of the party after they lost five seats. Out of the two other government parties in the outgoing cabinet, BBB (right-wing farmer party) went from 7 seats to 4 and New Social Contract (offshoot of CDA) collapsed from 20 seats to zero. Volt Nederland (the local branch of a pan-European federalist party) got the lowest vote total, ~1.1%, while still securing a seat (as a reminder, the election threshold is 0.67%, and 15 parties made it above the threshold).

[Lērisama]

Volt Nederland (the local branch of a pan-European federalist party) got the lowest vote total, ~1.1%, while still securing a seat (as a reminder, the election threshold is 0.67%, and 15 parties made it above the threshold).

That's still quite a jump, with no parties between 0.67% and ~1.1%

[Raphael]

As a result, it's likely Rob Jetten (D66 leader) will get the first attempt to form a government, and, if he's successful, he would become the Netherlands' youngest prime minister (as well as the first openly gay one).

Yes, a mid-sized country will probably soon have a head of government who is several years younger than me. *breaks down sobbing*

[lëtzeshark]

Volt Nederland (the local branch of a pan-European federalist party) got the lowest vote total, ~1.1%, while still securing a seat (as a reminder, the election threshold is 0.67%, and 15 parties made it above the threshold).

That's still quite a jump, with no parties between 0.67% and ~1.1%

It is quite unusual for parties sub-1% to still get enough votes for a seat. JA21 (a far-right party and offshoot of FvD, a further-right-wing party) got a seat in 2023 with 0.68%, so barely over the threshold, and BIJ1 (a socialist party) got a seat with 0.86% in 2021, but the last case before that was in 1994 (where a pensioners' party got 1 seat with 0.9%). Perhaps more unusual in this election is that no party got above 20% (30 seats), and this has never happened since at least the introduction of proportional representation in 1918.

As a result, it's likely Rob Jetten (D66 leader) will get the first attempt to form a government, and, if he's successful, he would become the Netherlands' youngest prime minister (as well as the first openly gay one).

Yes, a mid-sized country will probably soon have a head of government who is several years younger than me. *breaks down sobbing*

Only a few years older than me, so I still have (no) hope. (Incidentally, I'm just now old enough to run for US president, though the likelihood of me winning office would be about that of a snowball in summer in Tex-ass.)


Also, in more Netherlands news, since D66 did get the highest popular vote total, they have appointed an informateur, responsible for scouting out possible coalitions and initiating the discussions about talks to form a government. How long these talks will take is unclear: they've been very long and protracted these last three times (in 2017, 2021, and 2023, each time lasting over seven months!), and I don't see that being any different on this occasion. The current cabinet will remain in place in a demissionary role (caretaker) until the talks end, so we'll still have PM Schoof for a bit longer.

[rotting bones]

Yes, a mid-sized country will probably soon have a head of government who is several years younger than me. *breaks down sobbing*

What's stopping you from entering politics? A quote from Reddit:

A 34 y/o with only 4 years as a councilman just won NYC just by basically stating obvious truths and sticking to his principles. Billions in donations didn't matter.