In an Age of Right-Wing Populism, Why Are Denmark's Liberals Winning? | Hacker News Reader

In an Age of Right-Wing Populism, Why Are Denmark's Liberals Winning?

nytimes.com

10 pointsdotcoma10 comments

Summary: Denmark's Lib's have an "if & when pragmatic" relationship with current-trends progressive ideological purity. Especially when such purity might enrich the rich, hurt the working class, reduce social trust, or endanger their own re-election prospects. Vs. Progressives elsewhere seem beholden to both the 0.01%, and to their own ideological Thought Police.

I would add that Denmark's progressive parties would rather govern and face the responsibilities that go together with governing, and instead in many other countries progressives would rather be pure, lose elections and then point their fingers, look at how bad that guy who is now in power is, etc.

Yeah, sadly.

A theory of mine: The ruling classes of a large & powerful country usually feel that their nation's existence and basic security are Sure Things. So - they can afford to ignore problems, screw up, line their own pockets, and hold "my ideology is better than yours" clique wars.

Vs. the ruling classes of small & weak nations usually suffer from existential anxieties. "A big screw-up or few, by us, and our whole nation could easily fall into history's dead-and-gone dumpster." That feeling of being ultimately accountable leads to them act responsibly.

You can replace merit based systems with hiring first cousins or hiring on the basis of race, but you end up like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

That is clearly not the case in the US. With their repudiation of Sen. Sanders, the Democratic Party deliberately steered away from "pure" (whatever this ill-defined pejorative term may mean) and lost big. And when I say this, I mean look at what they did when they had power, not what they said--words can't put dinner on the table. Despite an electorate so hungry for change that they won with one of the most uninspiring candidates in recent memory, what they did was...nothing. Nothing to curb the moneyed interests. Nothing to help the working class. To me, the symbolic picture of this attitude was Sen. Sinema's No vote on the minimum wage increase (complete with curtsy, like a big middle finger to the working class). The result? Trump got about the same number of votes as he did in '20, but won this time, because the do-nothing Democrats got 10 million fewer. Voters didn't switch. They didn't turn out. Apathy for their uninspiring program--not "purity"--killed them.

The article claims that the Social Democrats are "defying the anti-incumbent mood that has ousted incumbent parties elsewhere," but polling shows a clear downwards trend https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/denmark/ So it's hard to claim that their policies are uniquely superior to those of parties in other countries; they're simply on a different election cycle and might get ousted in 2026 or 2030 or so.

Everybody eventually gets ousted, but they seem to be doing better than progressives in FR, DE, IT, NL, for example.

The Social Democrats in Germany had been in government continuously since 2013. Their Danish counterpart's current streak starts in 2019. The decline just looks shifted in time to me...

https://archive.is/wI4fM

Commentary by someone that lived (or is still living?) in Denmark: https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-new-york-times-gives-liberals-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com