Swedish election, 2018: Political Impasse, Löfven loses confidence vote

[DC Al Fine]

What's the rationale for lending support to Kd versus trying to consolidate Kd support into the other Alliance parties? Does Kd attract a different element of society that may not vote for M or L?

If not would not the Kd vote be wasted from the point of view of a Center-Right alliance ?

I'm guessing part of their support would disperse, but there would still be 1-2% of the population who are committed Christians and presumably would care more about supporting KD than making sure the Alliance wins.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm so old that I remember when this particular board used to be a place to discuss psephology, not a place where people posted propaganda.

It hasn't even been that long. I remember those days and I've only been around a few years.

[DC Al Fine]

SAP are currently pledging to abolish all religious schools, which I assume is mainly to target madrassas without looking racist.

Seriously?? OK that's insane.

The worst part of this veiled racist nonsense is that Jews (and to a lesser extent conservative Christians) get royally screwed. Want to run a normal Christian/Jewish school? Too bad! Want to butcher meat in a kosher manner? Whoops, that's too close to Halal

[DC Al Fine]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

Holocaust, tax cuts. Tomayto tomahto.

[DC Al Fine]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

Holocaust, tax cuts. Tomayto tomahto.

Why are you bringing up holocaust? What on earth? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

You called tax cuts for the rich a crime against humanity. The holocaust is a crime against humanity. Putting tax cuts in the same category as state sponsored genocide is a hyperbolic farce.

[DC Al Fine]

And there's just no way that any of the left parties will cooperate with SD at all, which means it's a foregone conclusion that the right side of the spectrum will win the election overwhelmingly (Alliance + SD), with something like a 15-20% margin over the three left parties.

Well, that's nothing new. Alliance + SD had a comfortable majority in 2014 too, but the Alliance still decided to squander it and allow the Red-Greens to completely ravage the country because of the SD scare. I suppose M won't allow this to happen again (never underestimate the center-right's lack of a backbone though), but an S-led government still seems like a real possibility to me. If the Red-Greens become bigger than the Alliance and S has something like a 5-point lead over M, which are both extremely likely, S may want to take the initiative to form a government.

Even if S does become the largest party, it will be really hard for them to claim legitimacy in order to form a government when their share of the vote will be the lowest they've registered in the ballot box since at least 1911, possible even further back than that.

My preferred government would be a majority one involving the three left parties plus liberal Folkpartiet, plus I guess either Centern or KD, though I really wouldn't mind a big coalition one in the spirit of Germany and The Netherlands involving Social Democrats and the Moderates, as long as the Moderate Party doesn't become the largest one. As we know from Norway and almost all other countries in the world, a modern day government lead by a conservative party means extreme slashing of taxes for the rich and as a result an enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor in the population overall. Basically a crime against humanity if you ask me, and a completely irresponsible policy idea.

Holocaust, tax cuts. Tomayto tomahto.

Why are you bringing up holocaust? What on earth? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

You called tax cuts for the rich a crime against humanity. The holocaust is a crime against humanity. Putting tax cuts in the same category as state sponsored genocide is a hyperbolic farce.

It depends on the size of the tax cuts. Unless you live in the US, tax cuts do not come alone, as politicians in most other countries are reasonably responsible and don't want to create too much of a deficit. That means, in most cases, cutting drastically in welfare programmes and help to the poor, which means poverty rising quite significantly. That's what I meant with crimes against humanity, not the tax cuts themselves. I'm sure that Bernie Sanders would not disagree with my assertion, and I think quite a lot of people, especially the poor, think and believe the same way. I believe the world has two main, existential challenges going forward over the next century or so. One is quite obvious one, dealing with the environment (plastic pollution, global warming, deforestation, desertification and overpopulation being the main threats) and the other one is the unspeakable, ludicrous income inequality in the world today, both between countries and within countries. Both are major crimes against humanity in my opinion. You and others are free to disagree.

Both of these major threats are the main culprits for creating refugees in today's world and both can very easily, and even likely, lead to war. Many scientists have for decades warned that water shortages in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East and Africa, could one day lead to a major regional war. This is just one of tens if not hundreds of examples of consequences from these two threats that could potential lead to a war breaking out. If not wars are crimes against humanity, then certainly nothing is.

(Btw, it was not the tax cuts, but the income inequality that I meant was the crime against humanity. I guess I wasn't clear enough about that.)

Again, bad policy, even terrible policy (in your opinion) =/= state sponsored genocide. To put them in the same category  trivializes the term.

Criticizing Soros is not necessarily antisemitic. Funny how people who defend Soros always play this card when it comes to Israel, but not when it comes to Soros.

As an aside, I have been criticizing Soros for years and only became aware of his Judaism in like 2017. Guess I'm a raging anti-semite. You should probably stop associating with me

[DC Al Fine]

If anyone can solve the political situation in a clever way without a new election, your suggestions: __________ . No, telling everyone else except SD to support your favourite party doesn't count, nice as you may find a C-L minority government to be.

I assume S+M+one of the small parties is out of the question?