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Notes -
Swedish elections, anyone?
I am far from an expert on this but I found it very interesting and wanted to do a quick post about it. Last Sunday, September 11th, Swedish General Elections were held to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag. There are 8 parties that seem like they were get seats, and it appears that they are broadly split into two coalitions - of course, today we naturally refer to them as the 'left coalition' (Social democrats, Greens, Left, Center), and the 'right coalition' (Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Liberals, Christian Democrats).
If you've followed any European elections in the last few years you won't be surprised that immigration appears to be a huge issue, and the rise of the right-wing, anti-immigration party (the Sweden Democrats, not to be confused with the Social Democrats) will of course mirror the rise in support for Le Pen, Lega Nord, etc.
But this time - it appears they won. Well, sort of. The elections are so tight that as of Monday night in Sweden, they're still counting the votes. But all the recent indications point to the right coalition winning the slimmest of majorities - 175 to 174 seats. Furthermore, while it was expected that the Moderate party (center-right) that would be the biggest in the right coalition, it appears that the Sweden Democrats (I think universally regarded as the farthest right) that will be the largest in the coalition, and the second largest overall, after the Social Democrats.
There's so much to say, though much of it has been said in discussions about France and Italy and so on and so forth. Seriously, I could rant about this shit for hours - about how immigration can be awesome, but not uncontrolled immigration of those who despise your way of life, about how the strategy of hiding data and gaslighting the public ultimately doesn't pay off, about the naivety and hubris of thinking that anyone that you let live near you will automatically adopt your values, and on and on and on. But most of it won't be new.
One thing that does feel... maybe kind of new(?) this time, is that the media reaction also seems somewhat more subdued, both before and during the election. Of course, most traditional / legacy media will still be tell you, or at least hint to you, that the results are a Bad thing[1] and that Bad people just got a lot of votes, but on balance it still feels... a bit more subdued and less histrionic? I wonder if 1) I'm just imagining it, and 2) if not, how much of this is due to Sweden being a much smaller country than France or Italy, and how much of it is due to an underlying sense of unease as having to portray the Swedes of all people as neo-nazis.
[1] To be fair, the Sweden Democrats do have a sketchy history, and a disproportionate number of their MPs do seem to get in unsavory controversies. Not my first choice... except they also seem to be the loudest at addressing the unfettered immigration fiasco [2]
[2] OK fine one small clarification rant. I like immigration. I do! I unironically think multicultural restaurants make an area nicer, and I unironically like meeting people of different backgrounds. But there have to be major caveats here. For one, they have to actually respect me and my society, and our values and how we live our lives. For another, it really helps if they either have valuable skills, or are otherwise productive in some other way. And I sure as fuck do not want violent criminals living anywhere near me.
Sweden isn't trying to import biophysicists or electrical engineers. They're letting in disproportionately young men from countries with poor traditions of women's rights, democracy, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. Are all of them going to share the views of their motherlands? No. But how is it nonetheless not clear that this would be a fiasco?
The victories of the pro migrant parties are permanent and all the right wing parties can do is stem the tide. 25% of the country now has a migrant background so the homogeneous, peaceful society that your grandparents knew is gone. The Sweden Democrats might slow the demographic change while they're in power but they're not going to reverse it. Elections matter and the Swedes have permanently changed their country for the worse. Unfortunately it's a lot easier to wreck a country than it is to fix it.
There is truth to this, but I think it is overstated. America radically overhauled our immigration policy in the 1920s. The specifics were often silly, but one of the goals was to give time for immigrant communities to assimilate. And it worked!
That’s not to say that all the costs went away; neither did all the advantages. But even if you can’t regain all of what you lost, you can regain some of it.
This time is different, even for US specifically. Lets look at this graph from this pew article.
The current level of immigration in USA is almost reaching historical highs from 1900 as percentage of population (Sweden has even larger share of foreign born population than USA). The difference is that in 1900 the US fertility rate was around 4.0 while it is 1.7 now (coincidentally Sweden also has 1.7 fertility rate now) and even that fertility is already driven by immigrant population to significant extent. The level of immigration from 1980 till 2018 is absolutely unprecedented and it is probably about to continue growing. If this trend continues for another 2 or 3 generations the situation will be unlike any time in history.
Another thing is that I'd say capacity of the West to assimilate immigrants is at all time low due to two main reasons. First one is the technology - immigrants have unprecedent ability to communicate with people back at home. You can have daily videocalls and access to all the media you want as opposed to a few letters a year. Second reason is cultural: the multicultural push is exactly opposing to what was happening in USA after 1920ies where new mass media had explicit push to get rid of "hyphenated Americans" and have only Americans. The new ethos in the West is to do exactly the opposite: promote foreign cultures and demonize indigenous white population and their culture as uniquely racist and bad.
I'd flag that this isn't necessarily at odds with assimilation. Look at first-generation Filipino-Americans as an example - this is a group that has assimilated very well by most standards, but maintains strong connections to their home country. I think we need to be clearer about what assimilation means. To my mind, it's something like convergence of broad values, linguistic competence, and convergence to national medians for things like income, education, and rates of offending. Of course perfect convergence is unlikely due to deep-seated differences between populations, but approximate convergence (or getting better results than the median) is all that's required.
I don't think comparing immigrant assimilation between Europe and America is that sensible. The power of American culture is a zillion times stronger than almost any European one. There are immense economic and social opportunities for assimilating into the dominant culture in comparison. Western Europe lacks this almost completely. The natives themselves can barely justify their own cultural existence and mostly see themselves as "America with funny language and some quirks".
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