You are absolutely right. danish politics are red, redder and reddest! Yes, economically DF is about where the SD are. But their immigration politic is different and they are frequently compared to nazis. They are stil shunned by all, the left especially. The Liberal Alliance should probably be to the extreme right, they are a bit like the tea party. Of all the parties, they are the only ones that wants to reduce taxes. And they are still what the US would call "the looney left" or "smelly hippies". There is no overlap between the US and danish political spectrums at all. A recent study showed that HALF the danes get their money from the government. They are on welfare, pension or just plain useless. Each person working has to carry another on his/hers back, as one political cartoon showed. If you count the people employed by the government, you get 66.4%. Two-thirds of all people get their check from the government. It's no wonder so many vote red! I fear that the whole society capsizes to the left: The more red votes, the more government. The more government, the more red votes. That is, until the few people that actually create wealth give up or move out. Then the whole thing collapses just like Greece!
Just two days to go. The more I learn about the Unity List politicians, the more surprised I get. Four of them are former members of the Danish Communist Party. This is real, hardcore no-kidding communists we are talking about here. They where visiting East Germany and the "comrades" down there. They are the real deal. Other members supported FARC and PLFP, two terrorist organizations. They did not just give moral support either, they send money. The polls say the Unity List will get 7% of the votes...
"well, actually most danes meet their live-in partners in school. marriage comes a little later in life actually... but still..." In my last post, I actually did not mean that the "live-in" partner was the same person that one marries later in life. That is why I wrote, "... but still...", since it is indeed true that most wives are not met through school. Relationships in school are still important, however, and it would be unfortunate if danes came to have in the future more difficulty finding suitable girlfriends in their younger years. This may seem implausible, but it is not inconceivable that denmark could go the way of London after a few decades. And yes, my family (mothers part) come from west Jylland. Things are indeed different in this part, but not nearly so much as they were a few decades ago. Fifty years ago one of my mother's friends was married off at the age of twelve, to a 24 year old man! Of course, this type of thing could never happen now. How quickly we forget the past. Many danes find Britain intolerant of opposing political views, and think your country has degenerated from its former imperial glory. "British culture" is increasingly turning into an alien non-European culture. I do not think most danes want their country to go the way of britain. Your standard of living is going to fall dramatically in comparison with ours, and most of the british people will refuse to see the real reason why. The plain truth is that your country is steadily becoming a third-world nation, yet your government makes up all sorts of other excuses, refusing for example to recognise that the NHS is being overwhelmed. But back to Denmark. The economic "turmoil" (denmark is still far better than the UK) will no doubt hurt the prime minister, and potentially help the Social Democrats, lead by Helle Thorning Schmidt, who women voters seem to like. Pia Kjaersgaard, of the Peoples Party, attacked the european commissions stance on the open border's policy. The center-left has recently shown some divissions on the immigration issue. It is still uncertain who will win the elections, but probably things will shift a little to the left, unfortunately. The Peoples party would be wise to support a strong female leader, to perhaps scoop up some of the votes from the center-left opposition.
Tomorrow is the big day. And it looks like red victory unless Blue block can pull a rabbit out of the hat. If the current PM tries to buy votes with some cheap trick like flip-flopping on the pension thing, I'm gonna puke. Red block did that a couple of elections ago. They sunk the economy for years to come just to stay in power. If the current PM pulls something like that, I'll never vote for him or his party again.
Well, the Socialist People's party just promised 40% off train fare, but other than that, no rabbits-out-of-the-hat at the last minute. But if you mean in general, then for example the Unity List wants to abolish the police and military as they are tools of the oppressors. Here is an interresting graph. I talked about the two axii in danish politics and here a data analysis firm plotted the canditates in a coordinate system. Left to right is the traditional left to right econimic axis. Up is pro-immigration and down is anti-immigration. While there is quite a spread within the parties and quite a bit of overlap between parties, there is clearly two blocks with a gap between them. The red block is economically left and pro immigration, while the blue block is economically right and anti-immigration. No rule without exeption: The Danish people's party is economically middle of the road, but quite far down. If not for them, the whole thing could be simplified to one axis going from top left to bottom right. The Christian Democrats should probably be counted as part of red block.
OK, the voting closed at 20:00 and it is now 23:45. Voter turnout was around 88%. With 99% of the votes counted, I dare to post the results. Unity List: 12 seats (+8 ). Good election, seats tripled! Socialist People's Party: 16 Seats (-7). Looks like most of the Unity List votes came from here... Social Democrats: 44 seats (-1). So-so. Radicals: 17 seats (+8 ). The other big winner in this election. Christian Democrats: zero seats. But hey, you are not beaten unless you quit... Liberal Alliance: 9 seats (+4). They are very happy with themselves. Conservatives: 8 seats (-10) Ouch, big losers! Left: 47 seat (+1). Still the biggest party. Danish People's Party: 22 seats (-3). A smack on the nose. Red Block: 92 seats (Counting three from Greenland and the Faroe Islands) Blue Bock 87 seats(Counting one from the Faroe Islands) So it looks like the current PM will have to resign. A shame, as his party (Left) gained a seat. It was the conservatives that really let blue block down. The new PM will be the leader of the Social Democrats, the first female PM in Denmark. But she will have a hard time getting a majority vote on anything. Her party, the Socialist People's party, the radical and the conservatives will not do it. She will need the Unity Party or some other party too. This will be interresting to watch.
Liberal Alliance had a good election and as a side effect one political commentator from a major newspaper now have to eat his hat. He has chosen a straw hat, as it is organic in origin. He will now try to pursuade the master chef of the world famous restaurant Noma in Copenhagen to prepare it for him. I can't wait to see what the master can come up with. This is better than Iron Chef!
Thanks for that plot graph, it is very interesting, revealing, and confirms what all of us have suspected. A few comments: To me it was rather surpising that prime minister, who is from the dominant "Left" (which is actually the right and is a poorly named party), decided to hold early elections. It seemed to me that the Left was only likely to lose seats by holding elections. But, of course, the polls were very close, and no one knew what the outcome would be. The prime minister seemed to be "rolling the dice", hoping for luck. As it turned out, his party gained a seat, but still in retrospect it is hard to understand why exactly he held the elections. Was there any sort of indication that the Left or their coalition had anything to gain? While immigration has been an important issue in the last elections, this election was much more about economics, and so I think the danish people were not quite as capitivated by the elections this time. Although I am by no means against the Left, I will point out that their platform has been a hypocritcal in a way. They have previously advocated for fiscal responsibility, but now they are trying to push a big stimulus, and denmark already has a budget deficit. I would very much compare the Left to the majority of traditional constituents in the Republican Party of the USA. The GOP, who controls the Republican Party, I would liken more to the Radicals. Indeed, American and Danish politics are simultaneously very similar and very different. It is interesting that the Danish people's party, who are against immigration, tends to be more moderate/left leaning. Probably, I suspect, many are from working class families, and are concerned about jobs. The Conservatives, Liberal Alliance, and the Left seem nearly identical in that plot. I suspect that the Radicals are mostly upper middle class liberals and business people.
the answers to your puzzle is that the general overall political landscape of denmark is on the left spectrum, that of the scaninavian model of a social democractic mixed economy. thus all the parties generally inhabit - re economics - a left to right axis within that scandinavian culture. as opposed to the anglo saxon model of america and post thatcher britain (australia and new zealand have fallen into this area at times) and whereby the overall landscape is the private business prioritising classic liberalism on the right, with a left to right axis within that culture. the second oddity regarding the DFP being surprisingly on the left. they are only on the 'left' economically speaking. on immigration and social issues they are very much conservative far right. but every far right nationalist/authoritarian/racist party in history, from the orginatorof fascism mussolini to hitler and so on so forth have always been on the 'economic left', a'la mixed economy/social democracy, etc. this makes sense when you remember fascism evolved out of communism. a noteable exception to this far right rule being general pincohet in chile, whom followed the friedman economic right monetarist model which defined thatcher. the third oddity about the 'economic right' party Ventre (the danish word for left) being called left is simply due to the orginal french historical origins of the terms left and right. supporters of the king sat on his right in parliament and supporters of the revolution on the left. the ideologies got attached to the terms later. ventre was formed during these times so was 'left' for that era.
interesting result Helle Thorning-Schmidt will have to reform some of the extreme anti immigrant rules of the last government, despite her reluctance, as she relies on 2 parties for her administration (endhilisten and radikal ventre) whom desire this. this means that denmark may once again become a country that foreigners like to live in, unlike now, where most foreigners of any country or race pretty much are unhappy with the general xenophobic enthisis of modern danish culture. The excection, maybe, of course, the americans, as americans that live in Dk dislike living there due to the xenophobia AND higher tax/general overall leftistish/welfare nature of danish politics. As the new government are ramping up the tax and welfare approach, the americans wont be happy As we all know that culturally americans are probably the most anti tax/welfare people in the west. Other foreigners probably wont be so fussed about this as long as they are started to be seen as equal citizens, knowing that as tax payers they can access the better standard of services and government welfare should they need it. And will be seen as integrated, but not expected to be assimilated. For example, lets hope they dump rule banning dual nationality.
Good post from both of you guys. I also have a hard time seeing how the new PM can make this work. The old government worked quite well together because Left and the Conservatives agreed on most things already and the Danish People's Party was willing to compromise on the economy as long as they got to tighten immigration laws a little extra each time. This worked for ten years. This new constallation...Can the Unity List and the Radicals agree on anything? The Radicals little plan to bring the Conservatives in has failed because the Conservatives lost too many seats. Can they replace the Conservatives with Liberal Alliance? No, too far right economically. The Danish Peoples Party? No, both the Unity List and the Radicals would have a fit. The easiest way would be just the Social Democrats and Left, as together, they have an absolute majority. But they are arch enemies. So maybe the new PM will have to try and make red block work after all. But it does not take much for one of the Unity List members to throw a hissy fit and walk out. Many political commentators predict a new election within a year. Maybe we will be wiser then the ministers are appointed. Oh, about the hat: A TV-chef will cook it up and the commentator will eat it on live television on monday.
Unfortunately, this will probably be true. Denmark is a small country, and dealing with a large influx of immigrants will put severe strain on public services and incease the unemployment rate. Kobenhavn has just the right population density now. Most of you have likely visited London, and seen that things are overcrowded and unaffordable. Immigrants typically cluster into the already populated cities, and this will no doubt cause overcrowding, traffic congestion, and a shortage of affordable housing. Yes, it is true that some of Thorning-Schmidt's anti-immigrant rules were ridiculous (especially the one that danes who have been living abroad for over three months cannot vote in the elections). We all know that these rules were actually meant to target the immigrant families and non-nordic people, but of course she could actually directly say this. So for the sake of "tolerance" and "political correctness", ordinary danes living aborad had to suffer along with the muslims. No, I do not blame Thorning-Schmidt at all, she did the best she could do to try to slow down immigration within the political and cultural restraints of the system. My experience is that Americans are anti-tax for two main reasons. First, many of them live in rural areas and have maintained a culture of independance, where they believe strongly in personal responsibility and self-reliance. This carries from the old frontier days when the government was not a strong presence in peoples lives, and when there was plenty of cheap land and opportunity. Second, America is much more diverse, and many of the whites and asians are reluctant to pay taxes into the system to benefit the poor and "lazy" other minorities. The anti-immigration movement in america is very much tied to also wanting cuts in welfare. Perhaps as the Scandinavian countries become more "diverse" it will mean a decline in the welfare state, as people become less concerned about other members in society who are different from them.
its not about muslims westerners, european, white folk, americans etc hate living in your country as well. not because of your country - which is great. because of your people and their prejudice
