Modern Sweden has gone to the grave ระบอบการปกครองแบบสวีเดนถูกฝังทิ้งลงไปแล้ว

 Modern Sweden has gone to the grave

And SD is the most successful political project of our time

Of:

Karin Pettersson

PUBLISHED: TODAY 13.15

UPDATED: LESS THAN 3 HOURS AGO

This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.

Joy during the Sweden Democrats' election vigil at the Elite Hotel in Nacka on Sunday evening.

Joy during the Sweden Democrats' election vigil at the Elite Hotel in Nacka on Sunday evening.

Photo: Stefan Jerrevång/TT

CULTURE

Do you know what the voters' most important question was? Healthcare. Too bad nobody talked about it in the election campaign. Or wrote.

It was Ulf Kristersson who invited SD into the heat, who shook hands with the racists. Who now has to live with the wounds from his Pyrrhic victory and deal with Jimmie Åkesson.

But the blue-brown successes also took place in a vacuum where no emotions other than fear were allowed to exist.

"I agree with Ulf Kristersson" said Magdalena Andersson time and again. The Social Democrats kept voters, but as a bloc they lost. The voter loss to SD continued, the influx of women from bourgeois parties was not enough.

The Swedish right, which now seems to be taking power, is not in the middle. It is not liberal.

The idea was that there would be a vote of confidence about Magdalena Andersson. The result was that it became empty, so resoundingly empty.

Healthcare, social security, jobs, the economy were absent. The great future issue of our time, the climate crisis, was reduced to a straw man debate about nuclear power. The large wounds left by the pandemic were left untreated. Who will take care of people who are old and sick in this country in the future? How will it be financed? Nobody knows.

There is something strange about Sweden. In the 70s we were the world's most equal country. In the 90s, it was said that we were the world's most modern. At the forefront, open to the outside world. A self-image that was already out of date.

Now we are one of the world's most reactionary countries. Unique in Western Europe in terms of how big and strong the extreme right is. Unique in how quickly the gaps grow, how much we let capital rule over the common. In how much the lobbyists control, how we let SD propaganda flourish and shape us. In how much we screw up in the climate issue.

Magdalena Andersson has been criticized for repeatedly agreeing with Ulf Kristersson's arguments.

Magdalena Andersson has been criticized for repeatedly agreeing with Ulf Kristersson's arguments.

Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

The Swedish right, which now seems to be taking power, is not in the middle. It is not liberal. Its center of gravity is far to the right, even by European standards. SD constitutes almost half of their voter support, a force that is not only interested in economics. They want to sort people, discipline them. It is a project that is explicitly based on inclusion and exclusion. On isolation from the outside world and farting for the welfare capital.

A large group of Swedes with an immigrant background are now afraid and in despair. They have been consistently demonized and portrayed as problems. They are the ones who have to pay the price for the election results that are now causing the school company Academedia to rush on the stock market. New business opportunities open up for Peje & co. It is important to understand that in other countries, issues of corruption and school funding are not issues that cut right and left. In this, too, we are unique.

Magdalena Andersson will say that things went well for S in the election. Don't believe her.

Two of the world's leading political scientists have written for Aftonbladet Kultur during the election campaign.

Cas Mudde, who points out that it is always the established right that lets the extreme right into the heat. And that they also then become losers when they let the right-wing extremists define which issues should be discussed.

Sheri Berman who notes that a left who wants to win must turn political attention away from issues that make the Sweden Democrats thrive, and direct it towards their own political agenda.

A book that many have read but that no politician talked about in the election campaign is Andreas Cervenka's Greedy Sweden. Here is everything needed for a possible, alternative election movement for a left with ambitions. One where the anger is directed elsewhere than at the immigrants. But the Social Democrats did not dare, or did not want to.

Magdalena Andersson will say that things went well for S in the election. Don't believe her. Her party went to the election themselves out of fear, they also wanted the election to be a referendum on the Sweden Democrats.

The image of the election campaign that stays with me is the party leader duel in SVT. "I agree with Ulf Kristersson," said Magdalena Andersson. But neither fear nor emptiness is sufficient as a political program, at least not for the left.

I detest SD and their politics, but you have to give them credit for sticking to their idea, working long-term and purposefully. They are Sweden's most successful political project in modern times, with an efficient and well-financed propaganda machine at hand. The only consolation is that they will no longer be able to play the martyr card, that they cannot claim that their hands are clean and spotless. Go ahead, Jimmie, Ebba and Ulf, the stage is yours.