“As anyone who follows Dutch politics will know, the government was dissolved yesterday and has become a caretaker cabinet. All this happened in a manner consistent with our constitutional norms and with no involvement or influence from me. Likewise, the process of forming a new government, which will unfold in coming weeks and months, shall be one in which I shall be a mere bystander. In keeping with our norms, I shall await the verdict of our duly elected political parties and respect the outcome of that process as has always been the practice in the Netherlands since the creation of our system of government in its modern form. In
the meantime I would warn all Dutch citizens to beware of fake videos that appear to depict me, or any other prominent persons, making statements with political significance.”
“Spot on” was Willem’s verdict.
“I thought I tripped over some of the words halfway through.”
“Just makes it seem more authentic.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Someone producing a deepfake would probably try to make it look perfect.”
“Is that the sort of thing we must worry about now?”
Willem didn’t respond. Probably because it was an idiotic question. Willem nodded to the streamer, who nodded back and popped a memory card out of the camera. “I’ll clean it up, slap on the bumpers, and have it ready for review in half an hour,” he said.
“Faster would be better,” Willem answered with uncharacteristic snappishness.
“Putting out a garbage amateur video with bad sound and color isn’t going to help given the nature of the problem we are trying to solve,” pointed out the streamer on his way out of the room with the memory card between his knuckles.
Willem had no answer for that. But after the man had left he looked around at the crew, taking the lights down and pretending they hadn’t heard. Then he looked at Saskia and gave a little toss of the head that meant we need to talk in private.
It took him about a quarter of an hour to lay out the basics of what he had learned yesterday in the SCIF at Eindhoven.
“Sorry to break this to you now,” he said, “when there’s this whole other crisis happening.” He gestured back in the direction of where they had shot the video.
“Do you really think it’s a whole other crisis?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Because obviously all this is coordinated.”
“Yes.”
“The deepfake must have been produced some time ago. They—whoever made it—could have released it earlier. But instead
they held it back until the day after the government had fallen apart on its own.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” Willem said. “You’re right.”
“Why would they hold it back? Because if it had been released earlier, before the government had fallen, then the fall of the government would be blamed on me. It really would lead to a constitutional crisis in that case. Deservedly so.”
Willem nodded.
“But,” Saskia went on, “if it is released after the fall of the government is a fait accompli, then I can’t really be accused of unconstitutional meddling . . .”
“Only of being blunt and outspoken. Saying out loud what ordinary sensible people are already thinking.”
“The voice of the people,” Saskia said. “Which I have never claimed to be. But it seems the role is being thrust upon me. Presumably by whoever sabotaged the Maeslantkering.”
“That thing was the pride of the nation,” Willem said. “A symbol of our engineering prowess. Its destruction a huge psychological shock. The kind of thing that makes people sit back and reconsider everything. Whoever did it is creating an opportunity to reshape the way our politics works for a generation. Setting you up. Not to take the fall. More the opposite.”
“Well, I’m afraid whoever that is is just going to have to be disappointed,” Saskia answered.
Someone knocked on the door. “It’s ready,” came Fenna’s voice. “A triumph!”
“We’re coming,” Saskia called back. To Willem she said, as she was getting up, “First things first. Let’s get this done and then we can continue this conversation.”
A few rooms down the hall, the video crew had patched the streamer’s laptop into a big flat-panel screen and cued up the edited video for their review. Like all the queen’s official videos it opened with a “bumper” depicting the royal palace, with the arms of the House of Orange superimposed. Then it cross-faded to Queen Frederika sitting in that chair. And then she said the words she’d said. Then it cross-faded to the “outro.”