Move to the far right in Swedish election

[JBS]

She obviously had problems, but was Trump's claim that he was offering a radical alternative to the status quo - albeit a thoroughly repulsive one - not a factor as well? I don't know the answer to that, but if it was, I would think the fact that the Republicans have already gone for something very different means the Democrats will need to come up with an alternative of their own. If sticking to centrism were a necessary condition for winning an election, Trump would have got nowhere near the presidency.

Accurate but you are not accounting for the many voters who might have voted for a Democrat not named Hillary.
In fact I am one of them. I voted third party. I must admit that I thought the GOP establishment would keeo Trump's worst tendencies at bay. I will admit I was seriously wrong on that point. I seriously underestimated the GOP ability to be a bunch of  bootlicking pieces of ----.

And Trump's program of nationalist economics is well within normal American parameters. His antiimmigrant  views faithfully incarnate a long tradition of American xenophobia. He is actually  far more centrist in his agenda than any Democrat or Republican. It's how he practices that agenda that is the problem.

[71 dB]

The origin of this self-destructive silliness is virtue-signaling.

Virtue-signaling is part of being civilized, something that people like you seem to have hard time to understand. Sweden has made big mistakes for sure, but at least they tried to do the right thing. Countries like Hungary just close their borders. That's not civilized and self-destructive in other ways.

[zamyrabyrd]

Virtue-signaling is part of being civilized, something that people like you seem to have hard time to understand. Sweden has made big mistakes for sure, but at least they tried to do the right thing. Countries like Hungary just close their borders. That's not civilized and self-destructive in other ways.

Oh, puleeze, even the devil can virtue signal. It is putting on an appearance of goodness without bothering to weigh all the considerations and alternatives. Filling Europe with people of alien culture and values means that you can't live your life the way you have been used to be doing it or at least your parents.  Women have to cover themselves in swimming pools. Heck, they can't even walk down some streets with shorts. They also risk being bulldozed when strolling through innocent pleasures like fireworks or Christmas fairs.

One would think that refugees would try not to upset the lifestyle of the host countries but rather show their gratitude by attempting to fit in. Going on killing sprees disproves any victim status. BTW, some of them in Germany get government money to go and visit their home countries!

Hungary and Poland got it right. Italy and Greece are waking up. They don't want their cultures diluted and their women raped. They don't want tent cities on the streets and all the dreck that comes with it.

[Mr. Minnow]

Accurate but you are not accounting for the many voters who might have voted for a Democrat not named Hillary.
In fact I am one of them. I voted third party. I must admit that I thought the GOP establishment would keeo Trump's worst tendencies at bay. I will admit I was seriously wrong on that point. I seriously underestimated the GOP ability to be a bunch of  bootlicking pieces of ----.

I suppose it comes down to how many voters the Democrats think they would win/lose by going in a more progressive direction compared to what would happen with a centrist candidate who doesn't have Clinton's baggage, and whether the net gains/losses would be concentrated in swing states. My knowledge of American politics isn't detailed enough to make a judgement on that, and unless or until the Democrats run on a more progressive platform it's hard to know for sure anyway. My impression that a more progressive candidate could win is based on what I saw during the 2016 campaign. There were many times when I saw former Democrat voters saying they were voting for Trump because the status quo wasn't working for them and something needed to change. Clinton's baggage didn't get mentioned all that much, and when the question of Trump's behaviour was brought up their response was: yeah, it's not great, but we need a change and he's the only one who might deliver it. I don't know how representative those voters were, but I heard this being said often enough to think that it was a significant problem for the Democrats.

And Trump's program of nationalist economics is well within normal American parameters. His antiimmigrant  views faithfully incarnate a long tradition of American xenophobia. He is actually  far more centrist in his agenda than any Democrat or Republican. It's how he practices that agenda that is the problem.

Maybe his anti-immigrant policies are just a nastier version of something that was already there, but his economic nationalism does represent a break with the economic consensus of the last 40 years, a consensus based on free markets and free trade. I've no doubt it's not a complete break by any means - and certainly not in terms of tax cuts which benefit the wealthiest most - but it's not continuity of the status quo either. But even if his program isn't as radical as it was portrayed, it does seem that his voters thought it was radical and were happy (or at least willing) to vote for that.