Leading Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders was met with welcoming smiles from many GOP delegates — and surliness from media people — as he toured the GOP’s 2016 convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
Correspondents for Atlanta-based CNN and the Dutch TV channel RTL failed to conceal their own dislike of Wilders as he rolled out his practiced answers to their semi-apocalyptic questions about growing popular dislike of Islamic culture and jihad.
“What is your solution? Because you’ve been saying this for along time, what is your solution?’ complained Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s British-Iranian television host.
“We have a solution,” responded the loquacious Dutchman. “The Netherlands exiting the EU [would] means that we would be sovereign again over immigration … second, make sure when it come so to the immigration from Islamic countries, that there will be a full stop … [and] if people have double nationalities — most of the Muslims in Holland have double nationality — if they commit a crime and they are unfortunately overrepresented in the criminal statistics, we should de-nationalize them and send them out of the country.”
No reporters ask him good questions, Wilders told Breitbart News, mostly because they don’t want to know about Islam.
But GOP delegates shake his hand, look him in the eye, and thank him for pushing nationalism in the far-away, small but influential country of Holland.
“I was going in [to the auditorium] to get a seat and I saw this crowd” around Wilders, said Lou Murray, an insurance salesman and a GOP delegate from Massachusetts. “I don’t want to meet [Sen. Mitch] McConnell, I want to meet Geert Wilders, I don’t even want to meet Mike Pence, and I want to meet Wilders … he’s going to be the savior of Western Europe,” he told Breitbart News.
“In Europe, Wilders is considered a far-right figure” said one irritated British journalist. “You’re not concerned that [Donald] Trump might be seen in the same light here?”
“Absolutely not,” he responded. “Trump is a populist and a nationalist, and he’s anything but far-right … he’s what we’ve been waiting for since Teddy Roosevelt.”
“I can see two or three people from my delegation that came early today,” Murray said “They’re going to be upset that I got my picture taken with Geert Wilders, and they didn’t.”
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