Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today's #vatnik soup we'll travel to the land of tulips & get to know a Dutch politician & a conspiracy theorist, Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet). He's the founder and leader of Forum for Democracy (FvD) party and also a member of the House of representatives since 2017.

1/12

Thierry belongs to the group of Eurosceptics, and advocates for both the Netherlands' exit from EU and the dissolution of the whole institution. He has strongly opposed the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement that promotes the economic collaboration between the two.

2/12

This agreement was made in 2017 & during the campaign, he spread a ton of fake news, including false reported of crimes by the Ukrainian military: nytimes.com/2017/02/16/wor…

Baudet was strongly against the EU sanctions on Russian individuals after the occupation of Crimea.

3/12

In Nov, 2016, Baudet co-signed an open letter requesting for a new investigation on MH17. The letter also requested Trump to do another investigation on the incident. In FvD's 2017 election program, they stated that relations should be normalized between the EU and Russia.

4/12

In 2020 Dutch TV program Zembla published Whatsapp group messages with interaction between Baudet and Russian Vladimir Kornilov. Based on NYT, Kornilov has ties to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, and in his messages Baudet described him as "a Russian who works for Putin."

5/12

FvD's then-treasurer Henk Otten said that he wanted to stop working as a commentator on the the TV network Powned, and suggested that "Maybe Kornilov wants to pay some extra".

After the messages were published, Thierry switched immediately to damage control mode...

6/12

...declaring that the conversations about Kornilov were a "running gag" and "playful exaggeration".The leaked messages also revealed that he wanted Netherlands to leave NATO,despite the party's election program declaring that Dutch collaboration with NATO should be increased.7/12

The messages also revealed a racist-y side of Thierry, and in one chat he said that white people had an average IQ of 110, while Hispanics averaged at 90 and African-Americans at 75. The party members also discussed if they'd mind if their sister "came home with a negro". 8/12

In Apr, 2020 Whatsapp messages from FvD's youth wing revealed a lot of anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric. The group's members also glorified mass murderers Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant.

Besides his love for classical music, Baudet also enjoys conspiracy theories:...9/12

... he has promoted the idea that the world is controlled by evil lizard people, called the EU being "a Cultural Marxist project, with the aim of destroying European Civilization", and suggested that COVID-19 was introduced by George Soros in order to "steal freedom".

10/12

In addition, he has parroted the age old claim that the 2022 war in Ukraine is the fault of the West, called Putin "the hero we need" and that he is the only one who can take on the elite (possibly referring to WEF conspiracy theory).

11/12

He has said that Putin must win the war in Ukraine and that "we must do everything we can to support him".

"Useful idiots":

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1590624121813368832

Conspiracy theories:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1611264337443684355

12/12