Read most liberal papers’ coverage of the October 29 elections in the Netherlands and you find this sort of headline: “Far Right Beaten, Dutch Good Sense Restored.” After two bruising years in office following an unprecedented electoral victory for Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in 2023, the experiment of a PVV-led government collapsed. This time, neat technocrats from the liberal-democratic Democrats 66 (D66) look set to steer a pro-EU cabinet. It sounds like a return to steady hands.

But on closer inspection, that is hardly the whole tale — especially for anyone on the Left. Three numbers should make us pause.

First, after the October 29 vote, the core trio of far-right parties — PVV, JA21 (Conservative Liberals), and Forum for Democracy — hold forty-two of hundred fifty seats. In 2023, they held forty-one. Wilders’s party lost eleven, yet JA21 jumped from one to nine and Forum rose from three to seven. In total, they control nearly one-third of the 150-seat parliament. This reshuffle is mainly tactical: once every mainstream party said it would refuse to govern with Wilders, many hard-right voters simply parked their ballot with JA21 or Forum, instead of abandoning this kind of politics altogether.