Right-wing nationalism is coming to… Sweden?
As we look ahead to midterm elections, where voter denialists are up in 27 states, it’s still mind-boggling to think how we got here in just a few years. And the answer, most bluntly, is an increase in right-wing nationalism.
Having been dormant for some time, the contours of this new and undoubtedly rising movement are by now well known. There are many characteristics, most of which are deeply troubling if you are a fan of democracy, including but not limited to:
A preference for national, religious and ethnic purity; an antipathy towards migrants and immigrants; an open hostility to the press and a desire to punish critics; and an apologetic or even approving approach to authoritarianism.
While all of this simply describes the right-wing nationalism encouraged and nurtured by Donald Trump here in America, it also describes a startling rise in authoritarianism in other countries, most notably Brazil and Hungary, where leaders Jair Bolsonaro and Viktor Orban respectively have marionetted Trump’s strong-arm nationalism to considerable success.
Elsewhere, from Boris Johnson and now Liz Truss in Britain to Marine Le Pen in France, right-wing nationalism is gaining a bigger audience, not a smaller one.
This is disturbing enough. Whether in Latin America or Europe, an embrace of nationalism, and in some cases fascism, recalls some truly horrific moments in world history.
But what if I told you that right-wing nationalism also won in some less expected places – say, Sweden?
Yes, the same Sweden that American liberals and progressives have long called an egalitarian utopia.
The same Sweden that consistently ranks among the happiest, the freest, the most liberal, friendliest to immigrants, freest for journalists, least racist and safest for LGBT travel countries in the world.
Last week, the same Sweden held general elections to choose the 349 members of the Riksdag, or legislature. The right-wing Sweden Democrats won a net gain of 11 new seats, for a total of 73, surpassing the moderates and making it the second most popular party in the country after the left-wing Social Democrats.
This was shocking to many Swedes and election watchers, according to Elisabeth Asbrink, author of “Made in Sweden: 25 Ideas That Created a Country.” The success of the Sweden Democrats, she writes in the New York Times this week, “marks the end of Swedish exceptionalism, the idea that the country stood out both morally and materially.”
As she describes it, the party’s origins go back to 1988, and a neo-Nazi group called BSS, or Keep Sweden Swedish. The far-right movement has “profited from the country’s growing inequalities, fostering an obsession with crime and an antipathy towards migrants.”
She notes how the party’s chief of staff in Sweden’s Riksdag declared that critical journalists should be “punished” and should be considered “enemies of the nation”.
The country’s defense minister called the party a security risk, due to its neo-Nazi ties.
Earlier this year, the party’s leader, Jimmie Akesson, refused to choose between President Joe Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
All of this sounds very familiar to us: It reflects the climate we’ve lived in here in the United States for the past six years during the rise of Trump.
It was once easy to think of this new political populist era as a uniquely American response to uniquely American problems. Trump was, after all, a uniquely American invention, and he both benefited from and pandered to uniquely American divisions and grievances.
But clearly we are not as special as we thought. A surge of populism in India and Pakistan, as well as Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France and now even Sweden proves that the movement is global, and so is its appeal.
To simply call it nostalgia is to separate it from the racial, ethnic, and sexual anxieties that inform right-wing nationalism and inform many of its punitive policies. But a desire to return to some old way of life is a common thread across international borders.
“Back to red cottages and apple trees, to law and order, to women being women and men being men”, as Asbrink describes it in Sweden.
The reaction to this vote blocking also sounds familiar: “People who lean towards the Sweden Democrats… have felt stigmatized… This has not only fueled the party’s self-image as a martyr, but also fueled even more loyalty among its supporters,” writes Asbrink .
It may be comforting to know that America is not the only democracy at risk—that we are not uniquely susceptible to these dark impulses, that this is not one of those “only in America” problems.
But that doesn’t change the fact that none of this is good. The rise of right-wing nationalism is corrosive and disheartening, and the more it spreads, the worse it is for the world.
SE Cupp hosts “SE Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and journals. See our guidelines.
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