Ideas.
Well, I do vote GroenLinks, she said. It seems that in my lifetime political parties had been shedding any idea they had, becoming a grey indistinguishably mass. At least your party cares about animals and foreigners. I don’t necessarily do, but someone has to stand for their ideas once. So I vote GroenLinks. I like that they say what they say, even if I don’t agree with what they say.
Welfare.
Life is good and well informed, so it is impossible to disregard that the world is warming up beyond any resemblance of control or normality. Of course he votes GroenLinks, what else? He don’t care that much about politics anyway. Now and then he thinks that he should change the Volvo W40 that his consultancy business leased to him for something like a Tesla, but the Volvo rides definitively better. To use the train is, actually, a pain in the ass. And who would not go on holidays to Thailand? All in all, everything counts, so he eats bio and double isolates the house, added a few solar pannels later. He voted for the liberals the last time, since they don’t complain that much… but probably next time will vote GroenLinks, again.
Anger.
How can people not see the corpses floating in the mediterranean? and there are so few of them! we could take in all the refugees of the whole world, and the economy of europe would not change for a centimeter, she says. She studies in Utrecht, and lives in about 20 square meters, which cost her about 1000 euros a month. Don’t ask her what’s the price of a real apartment, or house. She knows it and hates to remember it. She knows that she is unlikely to reach the levels of welfare her parents reached, but who knows, maybe she will. In the meantime, she is angry. And rightly so. Attracted by the words “radical democracy” in the slogans of Bij1, she remains wondering if her GroenLinks vote was the right one. This time needs more anger, she keeps thinking.
Ahead.
Two of his grandparents worked in a mine in the south of the Netherlands and the other two herded sheep in the south of Europe. His is the last step of a northwards migration across generations and landscapes. His parents managed to round technical educations, and still live outside the big city. He himself got a university degree, the first of all his family, and lives in the center. He knows that progress is possible, and needed. Forget about me, he says. Think in all these people around, just like our grandparents. They can be so much better off… they will be better off! he knows how arrogant and stupid sounds a party that tries to emancipate you. We are not in the fifties, he thinks. And yet. His GroenLinks vote is an act of faith in a government that fights inequality and yes, helps people to break their chains. He just does not says so.