Comment by yreg
3 months ago
>Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me.
To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."
Yeah, okay. I know some politicians who speak like that, I feel I get the picture.
I think you'd be surprised at how quickly that sentiment has moved from the far-right to close to the center. People are (rightly, in my opinion) pretty upset at their governments for letting mass migration happen with pretty much only downsides for their actual citizens. People are all about the idea of helping the downtrodden when it's just an ideal, but when they realize it's having negative consequences for them that can easily change.
From a US perspective, just up until a decade ago, it was a sentiment that left-center perspective that people like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton had.
I was caught quite off-guard by this new "open borders" perspective. It doesn't seem sustainable at all.
Who supports "open borders" and what do they support exactly?
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From the Wikipedia article:
> Markus Allard initiated heavy debate in 2025 by claiming that Sweden is "the land for/belongs to the Swedes"
> In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes.
I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out what these are dog whistles for, and equating my vehement disagreement with it as being in favor of "open borders" is absurd.
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I think, all pretty recently (atleast in the 'States), there's been much news and noise about the abuse and fraud of these systems designed to help the downtrodden.
Now whether that's all true, has always been true, is propaganda...whatever, but it's easy for me to understand why sentiment has been changing as the spotlight is focused more and more on the abuse of the systems as opposed to the benefits.
I also think there's some 'hierarchy of needs' going on here, where as the economy shifts and more and more Americans are struggling to afford housing, groceries, and other necessities, it's easy to feel like you should be putting yourself first over strangers. Combine that with the prior point, and you have a great recipe to build resentment. Selfish, maybe, but I can understand how you get there.
This is NOT to say 'There is no xenophobia' or anything...racism in general is alive and well in the USA... but I have pretty sound-minded people around me starting to echo this mindset, and this is my best understanding of what's been brewing.
For what it's worth, the most effective propaganda is that which reinforces latent biases.
Humans en masse are selfish, self-serving, and tribal, so it's incredibly easy to believe that there is massive abuse of social services like SNAP/EBT, those delivering services are incompetent, and that we should investment more in fraud reduction.
However, the reality is that the US spends $3.75 for each $1 of fraud discovered. And, "fraud" includes clerical errors made by the government, so the actual ROI of enforcement is even lower.
So much of the propaganda -- "immigrants steal benefits paid for by hardworking US taxpayers, so we should ramp up enforcement spending to make more room for [white] citizens" is designed to simply reinforce our biases because it's just so darned believable to a cynical and tribal people.
In reality, spending more on benefits enforcement just loses taxpayers more money while cutting more US citizens off from benefits they both need and are eligible for. It results in the opposite of its stated goal and this is well known to any policymaker.
So if saving taxpayer money, and punishing those guilty of fraud, isn't the actual objective of all this toxic propaganda, you have to ask yourself what is.
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Comparing the US and Sweden, it's also useful to know that the proportion of refugees accepted by these two countries is wildly different. Sweden has historically taken in many refugees (including draft dodgers from the US). In 2015 (an outlier) they accepted rouhgly 1 refugee (163k) for every 60 people (~9.4m) in the country. At its peak in 2024, the US admitted 100k refugees, significantly fewer than the Swedish peak. The impact of refugees is much more visible (also in budgetary allocations) in Sweden than the US because of this difference.
Why are you just comparing refugee numbers? That's incredibly disingenuous. A very large portion of the US's population is here illegally, and it would be significantly larger if we didn't have birthright citizenship.
They're effectively the same thing.
Migration in my part of Europe (Holland) has largely been workers for jobs the Dutch won't do. These people are abused as a sort of semi-serf labour mainly in the farming sector.
Some groups are a big net benefit to our (looking at the income the group benefits / social support costs) and others slight net negative. But once you take the economy into account it's positive.
It has been shown repeatedly in multiple studies (you might have heard a very prominent one from Denmark) that Non-European/Non-Western migrants are a net loss for the economy during their lifetime and also their children are a drag on the economy. Meaning the money spent by the government to support them is never made back (from the working) during their whole lifetime.
So no, most migrant groups are not a big benefit. Especially considering that this is only taking the economy into account. When you take into account the societal disruption and anti-values that they bring with them, then its clear how negative they have been for Europe.
> largely been workers for jobs the Dutch won't do.
The Dutch were happy to do those jobs 50 years ago.
After every single "jobs the natives won't do", there's an unspoken "for the dogshit pay we offer."
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I don't see neo feudalism as a positive.
Immigrants are a timeless scapegoat for the problems faced by the working class.
At least from a US perspective, the problem is that the downsides are the deliberate policy goals of the political class. Immigration was but one tool used to achieve them, and now the immigrants themselves serve as a convenient visceral scapegoat for releasing the grassroots political pressure. We finally built enough political capital to do something about the economic vise most Americans find themselves in, only for it to be squandered on performative vice signalling.
There’s expected to be 1 billion climate refugees by 2050. What will be this factions answer to that? Bullets?
What is a climate refugee?
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Yes. Isn't that how most factions answer that? Even most of the ones that are nominally left.
How can you be sure the opinion moved to the center and not that the center moved to the right?
Migration is all a distraction anyway. Brown people existing doesn't hurt you. Whenever you think they drive up rents or whatever, that has nothing to do with the brown people, that has everything to do with the system that sets rents.
"Brown people existing doesn't hurt you"
Yes, existing doesn't hurt. But when you import mass amounts of people who don't talk your countries language, have no intention of learning, and have no intention of getting a job, and on top of it are intensely religious supporting a religion which is antithetical to your values, then it DOES hurt.
Western Europe has simply allowed too many Muslim immigrants in than they could ever successfully have integrated. Now Europe is full of ghettos of Muslim immigrants who don't get jobs, don't learn the languages, and sap resources which the countries cannot afford.
Note: this isn't about being racist or not, it's just common sense. There is a limit of how many immigrants a country can take, financially and culturally.
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Yes, increasing demand for housing and increasing supply of labor definitely does nothing for both salaries and housing prices
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> Brown people existing doesn't hurt you.
Why did you feel the need to say "Brown people" instead of migrants? Are you trying to play the racist card? Poles are white and when they migrated en mass to Britain they were also making locals very unhappy.
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> Brown people existing doesn't hurt you.
BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45269764
> How can you be sure the opinion moved to the center and not that the center moved to the right?
I'm pretty sure he meant that what used to be a far-right view is now considered mainstream. Which is true, since even the EU Parliament has now begun passing laws vs migrants, and governments all across Western Europe are now taking steps against migrants.
> Brown people existing doesn't hurt you.
Correct, and I'm one of them. Unfortunately some abhorrent elements of our culture, traditions and values hurt erstwhile peaceful societies.
Supply and demand economic denialism is dangerously widespread.
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> Brown people existing doesn't hurt you.
In Sweden, brown people are heavily overrepresented in violent crime, so many people are getting hurt.
Obligatory disclaimer: the problem is not caused by skin color, but by a complex mess of poverty, lack of opportunity, societal attitudes within and against immigrant groups, etc. But voters hearing about a steady drum beat of robberies, rapes, drive by shootings (yes, in Sweden!) don't really care.
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That's how populism works and people act if they don't understand that manipulation.
Considering the history of labor unions and their support for the banning of Asian citizenship in the US, I think the right frame is that migration support / opposition has something to do with other things but not entirely. There are only a few ways to come to the US and the employment-based approach is probably the most widely used by unconnected foreigners seeking to live in the US and that pathway is intended to be abolished by Senator Bernie Sanders with no replacement planned. I think it's hard to describe that senator as particularly right-wing.
Likewise, it was a labour union in Georgia that lobbied to get Koreans deported from the US. It should be unsurprising that those who hold to the Lump of Labor economic school should oppose immigration and that's quite popular among the left-wing.
they can exist @ home
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„Letting mass migration happen „ is such a fallacy in and if itself.
Sentiment hasn't moved from far-right to the center. If it feels like that to you, it sounds like your perspective changed because you moved from the center to the far-right.
It does appear that the Overton Window has shifted far to the right on immigration, such that far-right views are mainstream enough to be highly visible, and found in representatives of formerly or otherwise centrist parties. I consider this shift deplorable, but it's clear that it has happened.
I think it's phrasing and the phrase "damn parasites" that makes it far-right.
The idea of changing immigration policies is not unique to any political party. However the quote isn't that, it's trying to stir up an angry us/them reaction at a large group based on national/racial lines. Also "damn parasites" is somewhat dehumanizing (whether you apply it to billionaires or immigrants).
You mean the Overton window or whatever has drifted right.
Nationalism is a right wing concept.
We were sold one thing and got another.
What were you sold and what did you get?
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No. That sentiment didn't "move toward the center".
What happened is that the far-right -- and, lets not use euphemisms like "the far right" here, we're talking about fascists and literal Nazis (ethno-fascism is Nazism) -- have successfully taken control of much of our mass media. They've also more or less captured the government of one of the world's super powers. Those two things put together have allowed them to make their views appear mainstream.
This is exactly what happened during the 1920s and 1930s prior to World War II. And similarly, you were finding Nazi views expressed openly and proudly and being given a veneer of respectability. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...)
But they are no less extreme now than they were then. They are still fascist and Nazi views. And they still ought to be abhorrent to anyone who considers themselves a decent human being.
It's beyond incredible that anyone thinks that the far right has taken control of the mass media. It's clearly the left that has control of most of the media, which makes sense. People in cities tend to be on the left. Journalism majors tend to be on the left.
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You have to consider the context which is that Sweden does have an awful lot of fake refugees mixed in with the real refugees. "Parasite" is harsh but unfortunately all too accurate for some of the migrants who are essentially gaming a system intended for people in real distress.
I think it’s quite important to understand in what context that have been said. The ”parasites” are immigrants that have not integrated, entire families and generations living off welfare and the ethnic group basically have a super high unemployment rate of maybe 50% or more.
I’ve listened a lot to talks from the party leader of Örebropartiet, and while I think he would benefit from slowing himself down, yell and insult less, I really can’t see he being racist or far-right. More leftist actually. I think he’s simply VERY motivated/obsessed around questions like to get government less corrupt, much more efficient governence, and to stop major ethnic groups from very poor parts of the world get an unreasonable high amount of the governments welfare spending.
It's possible to support all of the same policies without referring to human beings as "parasites," and I don't think we should be flippant about what language is used. It's relevant. It reflects a state of mind.
I personally do not ever see myself voting for (or otherwise indirectly supporting) a politician that speaks like that, regardless of whether you can steelman it with more neutral language.
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Isn't that what every politician who ended up doing an ethnic cleansing said?
I bet they also all went to the loo at some point. Better hope no one catches you there.
Maybe he was talking about beltway bandits, do they have those in Sweden?
It's funny that reading the Wikipedia has they have:
>"class-conscious populism" which according to party leader Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology
which would have been called far left not long ago. Still I guess "far-right" means anti immigrant these days?
Funny, I usually hear that sentiment from left wing sources complaining about billionaires.
Interesting, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
I think they're saying the left and the right are the same
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The billionaries don't need/care about sympathy And most importantly, the billionares don't do hard work for minimun pay.
Billionaires always have the option to un-parasite themselves, quite trivially.
Nobody is calling MacKenzie Scott a parasite.
Well I find the 'Eat the rich' slogan equally disgusting.
Won’t somebody please think of the poor oppressed billionaires!
> To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."
Firstly, you should probably cite that. Searching for it leads here. Hopefully, you didn't manufacture it.
But, while the language is unfortunate, do you really think natives should tolerate migrants who are not a net positive?
> you should probably cite that.
I got it from reading the Wikipedia article linked in the comment I was replying to. Specifically here, third paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Immigration_...
The statement has a citation but I did not follow it.
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