Critical journalists who tend - by a variety of factors like age and education - to be on the more 'left' side of the political spectrum write a large amount of critical articles about those various conservative initiatives, like the one mentioned above. The attacked parties gain an incredible amount of publicity and they've taken the tabloids as their "publicity hostage".
Combine this with the diffuse resentment of those readers/people not feeling represented by government, those conservatives easily win at elections and votes - even when some of those initiatives are in clear disarray of everything the country stood and stands for.
I always think of Woody Allen's "Bananas": By tomorrow the official language will be Swedish (same as Switzerland ;) ) and people have to wear their underwear on their heads. But at least its against the establishment.
The death of those sometimes outrageously stupid political ideas could be easily achieved by simply ignoring them and their pundits. This might force the political players to get back to actual problem-solving concepts and lead to healthier debates in the media.
But then again, maybe that's the wrong approach.