Besmirching judges, undermining authority

This chapter deals with one of the most famous political and legal cases in the Netherlands in recent years. Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, leader and sole member of the “Party for Freedom” (PVV), was brought to court because of a speech he delivered after a victory by his party in municipal elections. In court he developed a tactic of repeatedly challenging the presiding judge. Eventually Wilders’ play with the judiciary had a carnivalesque effect that led to the removal of the presiding judge – and that damaged the Dutch legal system. The chapter considers the political, legal but especially affective impact of this type of behavior on collective feelings of justice, or feelings for the law, as they were defined by Rudolph von Jhering in the 19th-century context and reconsidered in recent years by Greta Olson. The current media landscape is analyzed in terms of immediacy and directness: a directness defined by media theorist Sybille Krämer as “erotic” in order to mark the strong and intimate affective bond that some media make possible. Such a bond is used by actors like Wilders to work towards a collective context collapse that opens the way to a rule by one party and one leader.