Dutch riot police used water cannon and pepper spray to scatter several hundred citizens protesting their government's immigration and asylum policies in The Hague on Saturday after authorities banned the planned march — and the same state-criminalized-dissent playbook is already being imported here.
When native populations anywhere in the West push back against demographic transformation, the state's answer is always the same: ban the gathering, deploy the force, and smear every protester with the worst behavior of the few. Justice Minister David van Weel demanded an "extremely firm" response to what he called "disgusting scenes," and Prime Minister Rob Jetten posted on X that demonstrators "deliberately sought confrontation" and chanted "abhorrent" slogans. Both officials framed the entire protest by its worst elements — Nazi salutes and antisemitic slogans that some demonstrators reportedly made — to delegitimize every citizen who showed up to object to their country's migration policies.
Let's be clear: antisemitism and Nazi salutes are repugnant and have no place in any protest. Those facts are reported by both outlets and not in dispute. But the establishment press uses those facts to disappear the underlying grievance entirely. The Guardian and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution both labeled the protesters "far-right" in their headlines before a single fact was conveyed. The protest was organized by a group called We Are the People — a name that itself signals the populist claim the state is working against its own citizens. Twenty-four people were arrested for offenses including failing to comply with the dispersal order and illegal weapons possession, according to Dutch public broadcaster NOS as reported by The Guardian. Protesters threw fireworks and projectiles at police. A police car was set on fire. The headquarters of the centrist D66 party — whose leader Rob Jetten is now prime minister — was also attacked.
This is the second year in a row that The Hague has seen unrest at a rightwing demonstration against immigration policy. That pattern tells you the grievance isn't going away — and neither is the state's determination to crush it.
The framing split between the two outlets was minimal because both ran the same AP-rooted wire copy. The Guardian added detail — the arrest count, the organization's name, last year's riot, the attack on D66 headquarters — that the AJC stripped out. Neither outlet devoted a single sentence to what the protesters' actual policy objections were, or to the immigration numbers driving Dutch public anger. The story, as the establishment tells it, is always about the disorder — never about what caused it.
For Americans watching: this is the future the Democratic establishment wants. Mass migration transforms communities, citizens who object are branded extremists, and when they take to the street the state brings the riot gear. The First Amendment is the only thing standing between you and The Hague — and they're already working on that.
