nlpol, spicy take 

I think it's a bad idea to call this a democratic outcome, actually. The 'democracy' in the Netherlands has been deteriorating for many years in many aspects:

- No functioning journalistic apparatus, journalists just publish any claim from politicians and government without any sort of checks
- Justice system is constantly being (deliberately) eroded, with legal support being increasingly unavailable to low-income folks, "reducing cases against the government" was an explicitly stated objective
- No functioning checks-and-balances on new legislative proposals; constitution-violating legislation is frequently passed and there are no consequences
- No effective mechanisms to mitigate propaganda at *any* level, including parliamentary debates themselves, moderation there has been broken for years
- Protests of any sort against the government are structurally repressed by police with violence, this has been going on for two decades at least

Considering all these things, how much of a democracy is there actually still left? Was this a democratic election, or was it the predictable result of a lengthy process of propaganda and outright lies that nothing was done against?

I think calling it a "democratic outcome" only serves to legitimize the result, when there are good reasons to believe that it's not (eg. policy polls show wildly different outcomes).

"Democracy" is about more than just being allowed to cast a vote and having those votes counted correctly.

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