Why the right must look beyond the familiar Christian-Democratic reflex

There is yet another new party on the right in the Netherlands. Project2029 presents itself as a new socially conservative alternative. However, anyone who truly wishes to offer a response to the crisis of our time will have to go beyond the familiar Christian-democratic attempt to reconcile liberalism and community. This reconciliation may have been possible in the past, when the world looked very different, but it is no longer sufficient if we are to seriously resolve the current problems facing Europe and the Netherlands.

Last week, Mona Keijzer presented her new political movement, Project2029. For the time being, it is not a political party. She intends to decide on the next steps in November. Mona claims to be formulating an ideological answer to the problems of our time. The party’s values are also set out in a founding document.

What is striking is that the document constantly attempts to strike a balance between conflicting principles. This is even explicitly stated in its founding principles. It speaks of a balance between freedom and order, between rights and duties, between rules and personal responsibility, between economic interests and social stability, and between national sovereignty and international cooperation. This makes it ideologically closely aligned with the Christian-democratic tradition of subsidiarity, community and shared responsibility. However, is it actually possible to continually seek this balance in an age where polarisation and existential issues dominate the political agenda?

The problems of our time are primarily the result of this never-ending consensus (or ‘polder’) approach. That is why we must ask why this need for constant consensus-seeking actually exists. The social conservatism presented by Keijzer seems, for the time being, to be primarily a new variant of a much older political tradition: the Christian-democratic attempt to correct the consequences of liberalism without actually breaking with its philosophical principles.

That, in my view, is precisely where the problem lies.

The Christian-democratic reflex

It is not difficult to understand why Mona Keijzer, of all people, has arrived at this position. She was active within the CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) for decades before moving to BBB (the farmers' party which originated from within the CDA). Many movements that nowadays call themselves ‘socially conservative’ share clear similarities with the classical Christian-democratic vision.

The family is important, communities must be protected and entrepreneurs must be given the space to thrive. Furthermore, the government should not seek to regulate everything. Rights go hand in hand with responsibilities. Migration must be limited and national society must retain sufficient cohesion. These issues are important to fall back on in our current era of dislocation caused by liberalism.

Christian democracy has always understood better than liberalism that a society consists of more than just the individual and the state. Between the individual and the state lies a whole social world of families, churches, associations, businesses and local communities. Historically, Christian democracy was characterised precisely by a politics of mediation. Different social interests had to be balanced against one another.

Christian democracy constantly seeks to strike a balance between the individual and the community, freedom and order, the market and society, national identity and international cooperation. This nuanced view of reality therefore makes sense in a country where the ‘polder culture’ dominates the political landscape. This way of looking at things has also worked for a long time. However, if we look at recent developments in politics, the eternal ‘polder’ approach no longer offers solutions. Looking for a consensus is only attractive as long as values do not actually clash.

But what if values do clash? What if political issues are so important that they become existential?

What happens when individual autonomy undermines the family? What happens when unrestricted economic mobility weakens local communities? What happens when international treaties render national self-determination impossible? What happens when abstract equality clashes with the right of a historic people to distinguish between those who belong to their community and those who do not? These are all fundamental debates that dominate contemporary politics, and we cannot continue to engage in compromise indefinitely.

In order to make the needed fundamental choices, a hierarchy of values is needed.

The problems began before the ‘woke’ movement

This is why the usual conservative critique of our times is insufficient. From that perspective, the problem of today is often described as follows: the Netherlands was once a reasonably normal country with freedom, responsibility, a sense of community and a healthy market economy. Then the progressives went too far. ‘Woke’ culture, mass migration, bureaucracy, climate technocracy, globalisation and radical individualisation have thrown an otherwise healthy liberal society out of balance.

The solution, therefore, is obvious. We must return to the centre, back to a state of balance. Freedom, but also responsibility. The market, but also the community. Rights, but also duties. However, this vision is insufficient to explain the decline of the Netherlands, and, on a larger scale, the West as we know it today. To understand this, we must go further back. The problem does not begin with ‘woke’, nor with Frans Timmermans, nor with D66 (the Dutch progressive-liberal party), nor even with the cultural revolution of the 1960s.

The problem begins with the view of human nature that made the modern liberal order possible.

In classical liberalism, we already see a fundamental reversal. Human beings are seen, first and foremost, as individuals with natural rights. Philosophically speaking, individuals exist prior to the community and subsequently, through voluntary consent, establish a government to protect their pre-existing rights. As a result, the individual becomes the starting point and the community something that must justify itself in relation to that individual. This may sound somewhat abstract, but the consequences of this way of thinking are enormous.

Why should tradition be allowed to restrict my freedom? Why does my community have claims on me that I have never chosen for myself? Why should my family impose obligations for which I have never given my consent? Why should a people have a greater claim to its historical territory than someone who arrived there yesterday?

Time and again, the same thought dominates: ‘Why should something I have not chosen myself be allowed to exercise authority over me?’ From this pattern of thought arises an emancipatory logic that can be taken much further than the classical liberals themselves ever envisaged.

First, the individual must be freed from arbitrary state power. Next, traditional relationships of authority must prove their legitimacy. After that, cultural norms, family expectations, religious precepts and national ties become potential constraints on individual self-realisation.

Ultimately, even nature itself can be perceived as a constraint. Progressive liberalism therefore does not come out of the blue. It simply takes certain principles of liberalism and carries them forward to a natural new stage.

Human beings are not born as individuals

To formulate a substantive critique of this idea, we must return once more to a fundamental question: ‘What, in fact, is a human being?’ Liberalism begins with the individual and then seeks to build society on the basis of that individual. However, no human being is born as an abstract individual.

A person is born as a son or daughter and within a family, in a particular place, within a language, culture and history which all existed before the person could even be aware of them. I did not choose to have Dutch spoken to me. I did not establish the Netherlands. I did not decide which events shaped our history. I did not put my family together before I was born into it.

Every person awakens into a world that already exists. In my view, this is where a fundamental difference lies between the liberal and the traditional view of humanity. The liberal individual starts with themselves and then builds their relationship with the world. The traditional individual discovers that they are part of a world that precedes them; the individual as part of a chain.

The liberal would argue that every tradition is imposed on the individual, thereby immediately casting the tradition in a suspicious light. This argument, however, clashes with the traditional view. Indeed, some obligations exist precisely because we are part of connections that we have not created ourselves. Yet these connections do exist for a reason. It is not about oppression, but about the conditions of existence. If we follow the liberal’s line of reasoning, we cannot legitimately argue that the problems of our time are actually genuine problems.

What is the Netherlands?

Let us return to the founding document of Project2029 and consider, for example, the issue of immigration. Project2029 aims to restrict immigration. That is a valid point in itself but the real political question should precede it: ‘Why do we want to restrict immigration?’ Is immigration primarily a problem because housing is in short supply? Because public services are under pressure? Because integration is not proceeding well enough? Because the welfare state cannot cope with a certain net migration figure?

Or is there a more fundamental reason?

Does the Dutch people, as a historical community, have the right to protect its own continuity? That is a fundamentally different question.

If the Netherlands ultimately consists solely of a set of universal values (freedom, democracy, the rule of law and equality), it becomes unclear why the Netherlands, as a specific historical community, should be protected at all.

Someone who endorses these values could, in principle, be just as Dutch as someone whose family has lived here for generations. The problem is that a people does not consist solely of ideas. It consists of history, language, place, culture, memories, customs and a link between generations. The Netherlands is not an association that you join simply by endorsing its articles of association.

That is why it is not enough to say that immigrants must respect our ‘values’. The deeper question should be more about what we are actually trying to pass on.

Freedom requires boundaries, but what boundaries?

Freedom requires boundaries, but the real question is not whether freedom should be limited, but by what. Behind every boundary lies a hierarchy of values. Ultimately, politics is not about seeking a permanent balance, but about determining which good takes precedence when values clash. As long as individual freedom remains the highest principle, community, tradition and cohesion become secondary. I would reverse that relationship. Freedom is not the highest value, but derives its meaning from the community that sustains it. Without direction, freedom is merely about short-term choices and hedonism, and ultimately erodes the very conditions that give it meaning. That is why the question should not be how we can maximise freedom as much as possible, but which community we wish to preserve.

Once again, we are faced with the question: ‘Exactly what good are we trying to protect?’

If the answer ultimately consists of individual freedom, equality and the democratic rule of law, we remain within the same liberal circle of reasoning. In that case, we are ultimately protecting the Netherlands because the Netherlands protects the liberal order.

The economy is not neutral either

We see the same problem with entrepreneurship. Project2029 expressly aims to provide scope for entrepreneurs and to oppose the burden of bureaucratic regulation. That, too, is a logical critique of the current order. But economic freedom cannot be the highest principle either. When labour migration is economically beneficial but undermines social cohesion, which takes precedence? When economies of scale are more efficient but family businesses and local communities disappear, what do we choose? When free movement stimulates economic growth but at the same time erodes national control over housing, labour and demographics, which value takes precedence?

The ‘free’ market cannot answer these questions. Christian democracy therefore seeks to strike a balance between the market and the community. Here too, the question is whether this is even possible anymore. In an age where companies operate internationally, international oligopolies dominate the market and the wealthiest individuals play countries off against one another, the role of the state has become completely different.

From a traditional perspective, the market is a means, not an end. A country’s economic structure should therefore not aim to increase annual GDP, but to ensure that the country’s community can flourish. Society should not be at the service of the economy; rather, the economy should be at the service of society.

That is why I am very sceptical about the recurring tendency to launch yet another political project in response to every new social crisis, promising to restore the balance. As if the problems of our time were the result of a misalignment of our political order rather than the very principles upon which that order is based. As long as those foundations are not called into question, the solutions will remain ill-conceived and unworkable.

The concept of power

This brings us to a question which, strikingly, is often avoided in contemporary political debate: the question of power. Politics is not only about which values we consider important, but also about who ultimately decides when those values inevitably clash. Anyone wishing to preserve a historical community will therefore not only have to be able to explain what needs to be preserved, but also on what grounds it has the right to protect itself and what political power it must possess in order to actually be able to do so. Without asking that question, freedom, democracy and the rule of law remain abstract concepts, detached from the concrete community for which they are intended. Without that question, one will forever return to the problem of the liberal project: the human being as an uprooted individual whose sole task is to satisfy their immediate desires.

Thinking in terms of power is supposedly a relic of the last century, something that should no longer be necessary thanks to our superior ‘polder model’ and our progressive social developments. Human nature, however, has never changed. The questions that arose in the last century remain relevant today, even though we are no longer allowed to ask them. The subject of power has become taboo because the current political order pretends that this question is no longer relevant or associates it with oppression. The irony is that this subject has become taboo precisely because the current liberal order has been able to make it so through its power. Real power has not disappeared; it was concealed behind structures and ‘values’.

It is precisely when we refuse to think in terms of power that the illusion arises that concepts such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law are politically neutral. They are not. The very meaning of these concepts is also at stake in a political struggle. Whoever succeeds in presenting their own interpretation of the rule of law or democracy as the only neutral and legitimate interpretation thereby holds an enormously powerful political instrument in their hands. Political opponents can then be opposed not only because their views are deemed undesirable, but because they are said to threaten ‘democracy’ or the ‘rule of law’. This is precisely what we are seeing in today’s debate.

It is precisely the political order which claims to limit power as much as possible that wields this power when criticism is levelled at its own institutions. However, this does not make the question go away. The political is merely concealed behind seemingly neutral procedures and universal concepts. Anyone who wishes to give serious thought to the preservation of a community must therefore dare to speak not only of values, but also of power: who decides, on whose behalf are decisions made, and which community ultimately has the final say?

When discussions of this kind are not held, or worse, are criminalised, any political debate is pointless. When, in matters of power, one goes along with the liberal consensus, any form of resistance to its social consequences is futile. You end up recreating the very thing you are protesting against. If you genuinely wish to set up a serious political project, you must also have the courage to publicly criticise the foundations of our political order. The consequence, however, is that the defenders of this political order will defend the narrative on which this order is based at all costs. Extreme demonisation and uproar are the consequences. That is precisely why wanting to remain ‘decent’, consensus-seeking whilst at the same time actually wanting to solve the problems is an impossible combination. If you want to solve the problems, you have to start attacking foundations of the current political order and our view of humanity, and when you do that, you will be seen as indecent. If you can genuinely offer a threat or an alternative to today’s problems, you will always face opposition.

Conclusion

The solution, therefore, does not lie in seeking acceptance from the supporters of this order, but in exerting pressure and organising yourself so that you can change this political order through power. You do not achieve this in the House of Representatives; you do it through a movement of loyal people who subordinate their personal interests to the greater cause.

That is why I am sceptical about yet another new socially conservative project that promises to restore the balance. The problem is that we cannot protect these things whilst at the same time leaving intact the view of humanity that continually undermines them. Anyone who wishes to protect the family must ultimately dare to say that the family is more than a voluntary association of autonomous individuals. Anyone who wishes to protect national identity must dare to say that a nation is more than a collection of people who subscribe to the same political values. Anyone who wishes to protect democracy must speak not only of procedures and the limits of the rule of law, but also of the demos that governs itself. And anyone who wishes to protect communities from the market, bureaucracy and globalisation must dare to establish a hierarchy in which community and national continuity are prioritised over individual autonomy or economic efficiency. Anyone who wishes to solve our problems today must look beyond liberalism.

These are questions to which the classical Christian-democratic compromise has ultimately failed to provide a satisfactory answer. And that is precisely why it is insufficient to re-present that compromise today under the new name of ‘social conservatism’.

The crisis of our time does not call for a slightly more conservative variant of the same order. It calls for us to rethink what precedes that order: family, nation, history, place, authority and community. The things we have not chosen for ourselves, but without which we would not be who we are at all.

Any critique must fundamentally reject the liberal vision; only then can something new be built.