this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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Come to Europe, we have democracy! And the far right still wins...
But at least they don't automatically get effectively all the power after winning a simple majority. That's... something, at least. I want to cry.
don't listen to them; our systems beats theirs because you don't even need a majority to win over here thanks to the electoral college and gerrymandering. lol
if they have an actual majority (more than 50%), they would but luckily that's not the case... yet
Yeah, because we have more than two parties, so a simple majority isn't automatically an absolute one. But if you group the far right with the increasingly far right "conservatives", it looks much more bleak.
we've been in that situation since the 1980's; our center-right and our far right are our only choices for president now.
i used to think europe's democracies were ahead since they carried on with progressive initiatives the americans stopped doing in the 1970's, but now i wonder if europe's lurch rightwards is them catching up to the americans.
On one side of Europe there were French, on other - Soviet.
I'm an American so when we say "Europe" we assume it's understood that I mean Western Europe. Lol
Then cry. And then go knock doors and tell people why it's important to vote the way they should not because of one person, but for the future of the country and their own livelihood. Despair is only displaced by activism. All it takes for evil to succeed is for us to stand by and let it happen.
It is a pendulum, here in Sweden I know many people feeling disillusioned by the social democrats, combine that with ineffectual meassures against gang violence (often perpetuated by second generation migrant), where the perpetrators don't care about punnishment as it is quite mild.
Add to that that we have seen gangs and clans infiltrating the government at different levels, a few months ago two big news broke, one was that an employee at a court had let her criminal boyfriend sit at her computer using her access to go through classified documents, the other was that a student at the police academy had very close ties to gangs, to the point that it is assumed that they were tasked by the gang to join the police force and be a man on the inside.
Then we recently had a soldier who left his Ak5 complete with all parts in his car, against all regulations, when he was eating lunch, the car just happened to be burgled and the Ak5 rifle as well as a set of body armor was stolen.
It is assumed by most people that this was organized ahead of time, military vehicles have special number plates and are easily recognized, so he probably got paid to do this by a gang.
Then we have the dad who got shot a killed after asking a group of what was gabg members to behave as he was taking his son to the public pool, snd an altercation started, the dad was shot in the head and his 12 year old son called the police.
We also have some less recent major issues that had contributed to the rise of the right.
Incidents where young men from migrant families have been harrasing and even feeling up women, commonly at public pools.
Combine that with severe religious differences and some public pools have experimented with women only bathing hours.
Most of if not all of the above points have been related to migrants.
So it isn't that odd that when the left offer what is seen as weak policies and pushes for understanding of the perpetrator and the right just says "fuck them, we gave them food, a place to live, security, healthcare and what do we get back? Gang violence, disrespect and harrasment!", that people choose the right.
In my mind we need heavier punnishment, we need containment punnishments, way longer punnishments for those who are not interested in rehab which our justice system focuses on, after two times caught they need to get an automatic 10x the time normally given. If people are not interested in being part of a working society, then I'd rather they stay locked up.
we do that here; not only does it both not work well and allows people to profit from exacerbating it; it fixes a lot less and costs a lot more than treating it like a societal issue; changing policy; and aggressive outreach.
we've also had recidivism rates drop when convicts were given alternatives viable to their situation instead of focusing on the punishment.
I get what you are saying, but we allready have a prison system focusing on rehabilitation, and it doesn't phase the gangs.
By increasing the length of prison sentences, we atleast keep them contained for longer.
If you have any other suggestion, please go ahead and tell me.
American here, our gangs primarily exist because the police do not benefit (and actively harm) minority communities, and the gangs offer what is essentially an alternative police force* for crimes that otherwise go unenforced and unreported. Is that not the reason for gangs in Sweden?
(Gangs in these categories historically include the Italian mafia in the US, the Gangs of New York, the Triads, the Crips & Bloods, and I'm sure I'm missing others)
I have no exact knowledge about why the gabgs appeared in Sweden, best I can say is the extreme culture clash between migrants and Swedes making them feel like outsiders.
Sweden in an extreme country with an extreme culture, where as other countries are far, far more religious and family oriented, we are far more individual and have a deeper connection to the government.
This is quite foreign to mugrants who have trouble understanding us, which makes them push further back against it.
To be clear, the main issue is the culture clash between Sweden and migrants from the middle east, we have a VERY different culture and relationship with the government.
The main issue as I see it is that Swedish culture is quite passive agressive, and we have not enforced our culture norms hard enough that they integrated into our society as well as possible, now people have talked about how we Swedes need to integrate ourselves into the migrant population.
This is why the right is on the rise in Sweden
Finding that out will give you solutions to your problems
you'll never stop the gangs; but you can make it more difficult to operate if it becomes getting harder to find new gang members and less cost effective to retain the ones trapped in their sphere.
that's what i meant by viable alternatives to their situation; no matter how long you contain them they eventually have to return to their situation and all at great cost.
aggressive outreach is a more effective tactic at combating gangs
I never said that harser was the only way forward, I am all for preventative meassures
We really don't do that here, because we skip the rehab part almost entirely because it's bad for the profit margins of private prisons.
Yes; every time a city, county, or state does this; it ends up getting shutdown no matter how successful they are
While I don't agree with your conclusion/personal opinion of more repressive politics as the solution to this, I still want to thank and upvote you for explaining the situation and the resulting political climate in Sweden in a bit of detail.
IMHO, none of that justifies voting for far-right or even fascist parties (like the AfD over here in Germany), but I can absolutely understand the reasons why people do it.
Thank you, to be honest I have no idea if this would work, but it would keep these guy off the streets for far longer.
We give people a lot of chances here, but in the end, why keep doing it if they are not interested in rehabilitating themselves?
Sweden and Scandinavia as a whole put focus on rehab in prisons, so they get that, prison punnishment is meant to just be the incarseration, not the day to day life, that is supposed to be as normal as possible.
That is great! The problem happens when people just see it as a vacation, and refuse to learn.
Then I don't know what more to do other than making them uncomfortable for longer.
most of yall dont have democracy and the far right always win in amerikkka because the only options are the two wings of the far right party.
Imagine inviting American social media kids to come to Europe
they're all welcome
Wrong