Everything is Political

[Holdrüholoheuho]

well, we in the middle get all the isle news with a certain delay.
even F4 tornado can't speed up the buzz (obviously).
i watched the office porn twice but it shouldn't be presented silent imho (i miss a romantic soundtrack).
i wish the first illicit kisses to be accompanied by flute and when they start to move their hips (as if starting to dance) the full symphonic orchestra should be heard.

[sally]

hey greennui, have you got no government today?

[greennui]

hey greennui, have you got no government today?

Yeah, it's been a shambles for quite a while.

It was a very weak coalition reliant on support from parties on both the left and the right. A market rent reform sparked a vote of no confidence vote led by the Left Party, who had been promised that no such reform would go through in order for them to keep supporting the goverment. The ruling Social Democrats don't even want that reform but needed it in order to get support from the parties on the right. It took 134 days to form this goverment and it's probably gonna take ages again.

[sally]

you guys are practically belgian!

[greennui]

This probably means the end of Stefan Löfven's long reign. A humble, stocky, former welder and doormat that has perhaps let himself be walked over too much.



Shuddering that the next Prime Minister could be the Moderate Party's Ulf Kristersson. A smamy, whiny, power-horny man that would sell his soul to the far-right in order to gain power. An unmistakenly short man, many of his official photos are shot from angles that make him look taller than he really is, when photographed next to the female leaders (who are all taller than him) he is often seen standing on a higher spot.



He would rule with the help of the Christian Democrats, led by the icy Ebba Busch. She has been embroiled in a long running scandal in which she allegedly tricked an old man into selling his house to her. Normally a politican would back off due to all the bad publicity but she's so hell bent on getting that house that she keeps fighting for it in court. At this point everyone just finds it humorous.



At the very, very centre is the Centre Party and it's leader Annie Lööf. She is the robot that pretty much everyone wants to be the next PM.



The Left Party's Nooshi Dadgostar is the newest political star. A few weeks ago no one knew much about her but now she's a household name due to being instrumental in the goverment collapse. A risky move as it will likely lead to more right influence but pretty much everyone is admiring her for standing her ground.



Speaking of selling one's souls, the Liberal Party's leader Nyamko Sabuni's willingness to work with the far-right party ended up splitting the party in two. If the PM had called a snap election they would have crashed out of the riksdag.



There's also the Green Party who are a bit of non entity, they usually have two party leaders and change them all the time so I've no clue about the current ones.



And there's the Swedish Democrats, the far-right party who are responsible most of these muddled centrist politics. They are currently the third biggest party in Sweden and their leader is the slimiest, whiniest of them all, can't be arsed to find a picture.

[rischka]

In case someone didn't hear NY ag has finally filed charges against the Trump corporation and its CFO. It's CEO so far remains untouchable

[St. Gloede]

If you want to test where you stand in Norwegian politics ahead of the September election take this 25 question test.

I tested it in English (google translate, with no issues - note: SFO is a child care service at elementary schools)

https://www.dt.no/vis/velgerhjelpen

[MrCarmady]

MdG. Is that good?

[St. Gloede]

I mean, each party has their supporters.

MdG is the Green Party, they were block neutral (i.e. neither left nor right) until last election, but has since sided with the left - though the major left-leaning parties do not want to work with them. This is mainly as they see their ultimatums towards oil production as too extreme (it is the main state enterprise and the main source of Norway's wealth). They also have policies, such as their stance against meat that is easy to rile people up over. On economic issues they are centre-left, but often find common ground with the smaller and further left parties.

If the left wins they would not be invited to be part of the government, but pending on the makeup of parliament they may get a decent amount of influence. They are also set to have their best election to date, quite possibly going from 1 MP to 8-10 - though this depends on whether or not they land above or below the cut off of 4% of the national vote. (Most polls have them between 3% and 5%, so will be a rollercoaster election for them).

[sally]

i'm not doing this test, i always do these and discover i'm actually a full blown fascist or something

[St. Gloede]

Haha, luckily Norway is lucky in that we don't have any remotely fascist parties. We do have a right-wing populist party with some questionable messaging regarding immigrants and our "cultural heritage", but nothing compared to, say, Sweden.

[...]

Man, last time this was posted I ended up Green/liberal, now I'm a full fledged red! This site must be radicalizing me!

(That or I have no real idea about the current quantities of things, so answering whether more or less is needed is purely reaction to the terms used.)

[St. Gloede]

Maybe a little of both?

[Holdrüholoheuho]

local mainstream leftist media called ALARM (in a wider local perspective still rather a fringe voice) brings to the local leftist audience (me being part of it) with two weeks delay this article (translated in a local tongue) announcing the demise of capitalism and the advent of technofeudalism.

Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over
Jun 28, 2021
YANIS VAROUFAKIS
The claim that capitalism is being toppled by a new economic model comes on the heels of many premature forecasts of capitalism’s demise, especially from the left. But this time it may well be true, and the signs that it is have been visible for a while.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/comme ... is-2021-06

[sally]

all your arses are techno in ingerland this week

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/stat ... 3014585352

https://mobile.twitter.com/gracepetrie/ ... 8396412932

[nrh]

apparently uk labour has somewhat noisily expelled...ken loach?

[sally]

labour these days tbh i'm surprised they let him stay that long

[St. Gloede]

That's pretty damn devastating, can you imagine what would have happened if the previous left-wing leadership had expelled right-leaning groups? Starmer stood as a unity candidate. Disgusting in my book.

(The Labour party is slowly moving from a "better party to lead the UK" to a "less bad party to lead the UK" - though almost all policy they reportedly still support would obviously be a massive improvement. Apologies and commiserations to all left-wingers in the UK all the same - and let's hope Labour can elect a leader closer to what Starmer pretended to stand for soon)

[St. Gloede]

Watched the Norwegian Prime Minister, and while doing so I remember thinking just how much clearer, and friendlier, the debate was than the ones I have seen from abroad. No direct insults - except some friendly jesting/poking with laughs from all sides. The pleasant, reassuring tone aside, it is the clarity and the fairly direct and simple answers that really made it stand out.

And sometimes, the simplest solutions are the easiest, i.e. the final section of the debate where they - with only small clarifying comments, took clear stances on each issue:


Left to Right: Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservative Party), Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour Party), Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Centre Party)

I decided to include some of the most notable stances from this fire round.

Decriminalise drug use (small amounts)
Conservative Party: Yes
Labour Party: No (Clarifying comment: But heavy drug users should not be punished)
Centre Party: No

Expand a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy from 12 to 18 weeks
Conservative Party: No
Labour Party: Yes
Centre Party: No

Should Norway take in more refugees
Conservative Party: No/Yes
Labour Party: No (Clarifying comment: We should increase the refugee quota, but decrease the number of refugees coming to request asylum)
Centre Party: No

Norway should stop looking for oil
Conservative Party: No
Labour Party: No
Centre Party: No

Private Schools and Kindergartens Should Be Allowed to Take Out Profits
Conservative Party: Yes
Labour Party: (Sideways) No (Clarifying comment: Corporations should not be able to take out large numbers in profits)
Centre Party: Yes, followed by Yes/No (Clarifying comment: Agrees with Støre)

The tax-free solution at airports should be ended
Conservative Party: No
Labour Party: No (Clarifying comment: But the state should run it)
Centre Party: No (Clarifying comment: But the state should run it)

-

The only surprising thing here is that the Conservative Party wants to decriminalise drugs, something many of the smaller parties on the left (not in the debate) also wants, while the two biggest Left Wing parties oppose it. A very odd choice.

I realize that the immigration question may seem odd from the perspective of many other countries, but in Norway, it has been the case for a long time that Labour and the Centre-Party are slightly stricter on immigration - which in turn is balanced by the other left-wing parties. Meanwhile, The Progress Party (Populist Right) is the party most known to run against immigration - and until recently they were relatively close to the Conservative party in size and had more of a say. That said, these 4 big parties are fairly similar in their policies on immigration, with the smaller parties on both sides (Liberal Party and the Christian People's Party on the right, and the Red Party, the Socialist Left and the Green Party on the left being more immigration and/or refugee-friendly).

It is also slightly worrying that none of these three big parties are thinking about stopping the search of oil - when, by the time these plants were up oil will most likely not be profitable anymore. We already have a large set of oil platforms and reserves to keep us going for several decades.

[sally]

the abortion limit in norway is 12 weeks????? it's 24 weeks here

goodness me, one thing britain isn't shit at

[---]

the Conservatives are the only ones who want to decriminalize drug use? is there some factor I'm missing?

[sally]

i don't think norway means what we think it means

(altho to be fair most of my knowledge of what norway ever meant could be summed up as: i ♥ fenriz)

[St. Gloede]

It is possible to have an abortion after 12 weeks, but in that case you need to apply and the abortion must take place in a hospital, rather than an abortion clinic. The application has to go in front of a council. Those supporting expanding the right to abortion also want to abolish the council.

-

The position on drugs seems arbitrary for all the 2 biggest parties rather than being tied to their internal logic and ideology. The Centre Party, which is the 3rd biggest, is fairly conservative on social issues and their position is to be expected. Generally speaking, the Conservative Party is socially liberal, though comparatively conservative/cautious to most of the other parties, including Labour.

I don't actually know why they flipped on the issue and it is a recent development. It could really just come down to polling what their likely voters would respond to, and same for Labour. The Conservative Party could also have been swayed by their coalition partner, The Liberal Party, which has been pushing to legalize marijuana and is firmly for decriminalizing drugs.

Note, there are 9 parliamentary parties, these are simply the ones attempting to get the prime minister position. The Red Party, the Socialist Left and the Green Party, all on the left, are also for decriminalizing drugs. Meanwhile The Progress Party and The Christian People's Party, both on the right, are strongly against it.

[rischka]

the ironically named Progress Party

is there such a thing as libertarians in norway? they are conservatives who are for decriminalizing everything. LIBERTY. for white men

i think i'm more of a social anarchist LIBERTY for everybody

[---]

Libertarians in America: FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS ARE TYRANNY! They try to stop state governments from enacting mass criminalization.

[St. Gloede]

There is a minuscule "Libertarian" party called The Liberals, whose goal is a society closer to the US, but they will most likely never get any power. They are around the size of the Christian breakout party of the already small Christian People's Party.

In practice, the centre-right Liberal Party is the closest in terms of social freedoms, but they are still Social Liberals (i.e. Liberals who still believe in a strong welfare state), by US standards they are comparable to FDR/the Progressive Wing of the Democrats on economic ideology(though of course, considerably to their left in actual policy due to the different spectrum).

Election update

One of the big changes over the last week has been the major drop of the centre party in the polls.

The indication is that while people support the Centre Party's decentralization politics and like the leader - they do not see him as a Prime Minister candidate. Many have also claimed that they appear less credible on the environment, causing them to drop in a very green election. The slight danger here is that a weaker Centre Party could make right-leaning voters aiming for a Labour/Centre Party government be more inclined to switch back to the Right Block - though this should not have the impact to alter which block wins. The three latest polls:

*the +/- percentages points are referencing the last polls for the same organization, usually done the prior month)
*The red line signals the 4% mark needed to get MPs that match their national percantage

19th of August


22nd of August


23rd of August


In each of the above polls, The Centre Party is between 11.2% and 13% - a pretty extreme drop from their average of 16% last month and their earlier averages above 20% earlier this year.

You may also notice that the Socialist Left is consistently polling 9.5%, a very strong position to be in before the coalition talks - especially if The Centre Party remains at its current level of falls lower.

The poll from yesterday is the most promising in terms of my politics as it shows the voters being won over by parties on the Left, possibly cementing the politics further left than originally presumed just a few months ago.

The second poll also shows the possible but highly unlikely scenario where The Socialist Left ends up bigger than the Progress Party - but in this poll the number of "uncertain/10th party voters" is unreasonably high.

Key narrative
The narrative is that the Green Parties, that is to say, the actual Green Party, as well as The Red Party, The Socialist Left and The Liberal Party are doing better due to the report from the UN on climate change and the importance of Green politics. The changes for the "green parties" are mainly. The changes for these parties are not that major yet, but with The Liberal suddenly being above 4% on certain polls, including two of the above, signals a key change.

Final alignment
Yesterday's poll would create an incredible election result from my perspective:



This alternative is highly unlikely. I'm guessing the Left to Right power dynamics will be around 97 to 72, but in the above scenario, there would actually be a left majority of 2 MPs without The Centre Party. To be clear, this will not happen this election - but sets forth a possible future where the left is big enough to not need them in the event they would switch to the right block.

All three polls also give us a clean majority government with 86-91 MPs from Labour, The Centre Party and The Socialist Left (the coalition that worked together from 2005-2013).

-

This is not the best result for "Green voters", as a government that would need the Red Party and The Green Party would need to be more environmentally friendly, but all parliamentary parties have already agreed to cut emissions by 50% by 2030. The Red Party and The Green Party both entering the parliament with 9-11 MPs and 4 years in opposition to build their profiles, their MPs' profile and show responsibility will also likely be a recipe for even stronger results in 2025.

EDIT:

New poll from yesterday: 24th of August 2020



Just like in each other poll, the Centre Party shows a distinct decline - and despite falling 5.5% since the last poll conducted for this publication, this is the best of the last 4, placing them on 13.2%.

Each of the so-called green parties also has an upward trend, with The Greens themselves doing exceptionally well.

One key issue in this poll is the high amount of people who have answered another party/or don't know. The majority of these votes will go for one of the 9 parliamentary parties. The question is where they will go. My gut feeling is that a solid portion of them are on the right, as the decline of the Conservative Party is very close to "their" increase, and that they are deciding between The Liberal Party and The Christian People's Party to get them over the line. A portion is also likely Centre Party, and here again the question is if they will go left or right.

What is exciting is that for the second poll in a row there is actually a left-wing majority even without The Centre Party. Essentially what I hoped would happen in 4-8 years may happen already this year.

I still find it extremely unlikely to near impossible (as at least one of the small right-wing parties are likely to cross the line) and it should not have any practical effects this election unless The Centre Party drops even further, but for a stronger left in the years to come, it is essential.

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/statu ... 02272?s=20

i assume everyone's been following the news...

[St. Gloede]

As most people reading this probably know, I am not a fan of the Conservative Party in Norway, but I thought I'd make the Americans a little jealous.

Tina Bru, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party, had this conversation in a video interview just a few days ago (rough translation and slightly shortened/simplified, note: the term social differences include economic differences, and in this case the conversation is mainly on economics)

Interviewer: "Do you think it is unfortunate that there are big social differences and that we should aim to reduce them, or do you think that social differences are acceptable as long as people are able to afford basic necessities"
Tina Bru: "No, you always need to work to reduce social differences"
Interviewer: Why?"
Tina Bru: "Because if they grow too big they form the root of almost everything I think can be bad about a society, it is important to have a sense of comm..."
Interviewer: "So, the US would be an example of how horrible it can get?"
Tina Bru: "Exactly! WE need to have a sense of community and if a part of the population feel that they are left behind, it is simply not a good thing.
Interviewer: "Bernie Sanders said that you should not be allowed to be a billionaire, how much money should someone be allowed to have?
Tina Bru: We can't put an upper cap on it.
Interviewer: Ok, how poor should someone be allowed to be?
Tina Bru: We should not allow anyone to be poor. We always need to work with the goal that no one in our society should be poor.

Obviously not great quotes overall from a left-wing perspective, but actually seeing a key member agree that the US is an example of a type of society we need to avoid becoming at all costs is very reassuring - as it the less surprising stance of poverty - and note, while the Conservative Party does cut benefits they are, at least on paper, in favour of a notable welfare state.

[rischka]

Brace yrself for the shitstorm over Vax mandates. So glad I'm taking early retirement. I'll be in utah canyonlands if anyone needs me, enjoying what's still great about this stupid country. Relishing telling a bunch of trumpies that obamacare is helping to make this possible. Suck it psychos

[St. Gloede]

The Norwegian Election is today!

In Norway, it is not legal to report any numbers until the voting boots are closed, and the results will only start trickling in at 21.00 CET.

That said, 42.3% of eligible voters (the last election had 78% participation, meaning this could be more than half of all voters) have already voted in advance, and based on a survey this is the projected result based on these results:



I don't think this will be that close to the actual votes, and assume more rural votes will come in for SP (Centre Party), KrF (Christian People's Party) on the day, with the socialist parties (R, SV) doing somewhat worse, along with MDG (Green Party) and possibly also V (Liberal Party) as these 4 have more support in cities, with the Centre Party and the Christian People's Party, in particular, have most of their supporters away from the cities.

Looking at the last election, The Centre Party got 8.8% of the advance votes and 11.2% on the day, culminating with 10.3%, meanwhile, the Greens got 4.1% of the advance votes and only 2.8% of the votes on the day culminating with 3.4%. This said, due to Covid the advanced voting participation has been much, much higher. Most other parties, including the Socialist Left, had almost the same numbers, however, which is very promising.

As discussed previously, the Liberal-Conservative government will lose in this election - while there are theoretical paths to victories, those seem exhausted.

The main questions here will be how strong the socialist parties, especially the Socialist Left will become vs. the Centre Party in regard to negotiations for a new government and their platform. If the Centre Party becomes too strong we may see a Labour/Centre Party minority government, but the weaker the Centre Party gets and the stronger The Socialist Left gets, the more likely we are to get a more balanced left-wing government rather than one that leans heavily to the centre.

The other question is if a left-wing government will depend on the Red Party - which most polls suggest. The left will not work with the Green Party due to their ultimatum of stopping all oil production by 2035, which means that the Red Party will be their only option and that there will be even further left-wing compromises on growing the public sector (including public companies) and strengthening workers rights.

It will also be interesting to see if The Christian People's Party can survive above the 4% line, which is the difference between 7-8 and 3 MPs. With their dying voting base landing below 4% will be a sign that the party is most likely nearing their end (unless they can succeed with a powerful rejuvenation project). The other smaller right-wing party, The Liberal Party, has however turned their numbers around, and are looking safer and safer - likely due to Conservative voters flocking to save them, and their new younger leader who is pushing a very green and Liberal agenda, allowing them to compete with the Greens and ensure that right-leaning voters concerned with the environment has a home to go to. They are also really banking on decriminalisation of drugs and their standard small business focus.

The clear fall of both The Conservative Party (H) and The Progress Party (FrP) is very interesting, especially in the latter case, as it shows that they have lost a degree of faith in their right-wing populism.