The invasion of Ukraine is making life difficult for right-wing populists

sort of crowd you might expect on Amsterdam’s Leidseplein, around the corner from the Bulldog Palace marijuana café. Several dozen demonstrators—awkward young men, middle-aged couples and ageing hippies—turned out on March 13th to support Forum for Democracy (), a far-right populist party that thinks covid is a hoax and blames Russia’s on the West. A DJ played electronic dance music atop a trailer festooned with posters of Thierry Baudet, the s leader, a dandyish Eurosceptic with a h in legal philosophy. The party has five seats in the Netherlands’ 150-seat parliament.Soon Mr Baudet’s ally, Willem Engel, a dreadlocked salsa-dance instructor and covid-sceptic internet influencer, took the stage. “We cannot let ourselves get dragged into a war,” said Mr Engel, denouncing Dutch shipments of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to . The media, he said, was whipping up hatred towards Russians just as the Nazis had towards Jews. (“Ach, the media”, tutted a woman in the crowd.)