Didn’t have much stamina at the gym, but I’m very glad I still went.

Today I moved the desk around so that it faces into the living room instead of into the wall. I am not exaggerating when I say this took 5 full hours, mostly because of all the cleaning and especially cable management involved. The new setup has a lot of significant advantages:

• Since we now face the window, the lighting situation is MUCH better — esp. when it comes to glare;
• Facing the living room feels a lot more socially comfortable when there’s someone there;
• I’ve discovered that staring into a wall all day is just really bad for my mental;
• It’s less fatiguing on the eyes;
• It’s easier to keep clean;
• It enforces better cable management and makes cable management easier.

It was election day in NL today. I really don’t follow Dutch politics much anymore, but my view in summary:

• The Left lost some in a race where they really should’ve won, but I think it’s an exaggeration to call it a “decimation” and it’s all pretty easily explained by their usual disappointing PR and campaigning failures. Not that unpredictable I don’t think. Timmermans quit as GL-PVDA party leader as the exit polls were rolling in and it’s probably for the best given how unpopular he was, even if the sheer intensity of the hate is mostly downstream of a very effective right-wing smear campaign.
• The Far Right has seen some fracturing and power redistribution. PVV is still their biggest power block but has lost a lot and I think at this point is just kind of done… even after their huge victory last election cycle they again and again prove incapable of getting anything done; Wilders is in his 60s now too (old for a Dutch politician) and the party will die with him. JA21 is the big winner on the Far Right and seem like the least mentally ill of their cohort. They wish to resurrect Fortuynism combined with a far right economic agenda and that does speak to some of the electorate.
• The Center is the big winner this election cycle with both CDA and D66 winning big. Results are still running in but D66 seems to be narrowly the largest party, which I feel reflects the will of the people quite well.

Overall the results feel like somewhat of a return to sanity but also just a return to the exact status quo that The People are vocally very tired of. Laughing at the D66 campaign promise to “build 10 new cities”. I would actually really support building another city or two, but past that it’s clear you’re just saying stupid shit to sound cool.

I continue to think that there would be a large support base for the Left, if only they would:

• Compromise hard on migration — there’s no two ways about this, the people have spoken on this matter louder than on anything else;
• Change what they prioritize in their campaigning, especially shifting away from all the climate issues — I don’t think they need to change that much about their actual programme, and to do so radically would be a betrayal of integrity regardless, but the issue does not appeal to voters enough for how much it’s discussed. For instance if you put “raise taxes” and “do better for the climate” front and center in your campaign, it’s gonna sound like you want to raise taxes in order to do better for the climate, which isn’t true, isn’t reasonable, and isn’t a good sell, even if both of those policies themselves are reasonable;
• Really change the face of their representatives, stop giving off this educated urban elites aura, that’s a very valid and common criticism, especially among the lower classes and rural people who traditionally form much of their support base but have now shifted to populist right;
• Actually listen to economists for once on economic policy — I usually consider the left very strong on tax policy for instance, but then they just make awful errors like high capital gains tax on unrealized gains and it just becomes this awful idea that could’ve easily been really good if they’d just listened to any economist on this (among other examples);

I always feel like the left constantly struggles to express itself through any frame other than Marxism, usually manifesting as being lost for words. There’s a lot of value to Marxism but also a lot of deep problems that if they weren’t fatal from the start have surely become so after decades of orthodoxy. More than that it really, really, really doesn’t sell.

Other than that I slept in very late and used up all my energy cleaning, so I left quite a few things undone.