Ulf Kristersson, party leader for Moderaterna, and Hédi Fried, psychologist, author, and Holocaust survivor

The photograph above was taken just before the Swedish parliamentary election took place in 2018. Ulf Kristersson, the party leader for Moderaterna, a neoliberal-conservative party, promised Hédi Fried, psychologist, author, and Holocaust survivor, that he would never mix with Sverigedemokraterna, the extreme right-wing party. "Mix" is his phrase.

Sverigedemokraterna are known for being irrational and xenophobic. There is a long line of detest for intellectual thought in the party, which has very recent roots in nazism and xenophobia.

Sverigedemokraterna, with the support of Moderaterna, recently voted a motion through on the municipal level in Trelleborg, Sweden. The motion makes it mandatory to shake hands to finalise a recruitment process for anybody seeking employment.

I won't even touch (no pun intended) how badly this plays out during a pandemic, but I will say this: this is a simple play to further their islamophobic agenda.

This is a party that has produced propaganda videos where hijab-wearing women pushing prams chase old people. A party whose vice chairman relatively recently said 'Jews and Sámi are not Swedish'. A party where 40% of its members oppose COVID-19 vaccinations. A party that, when current party leader Jimmie Åkesson joined, was led by a nazi-affiliated person (Anders Klarström); Åkesson has lied about this but has been disproven by his own writing.

Moderaterna is a populist party that effectively does what they can to mimic known movements to gain votes. Both Moderaterna and Sverigedemokraterna are losing votes. This also goes for the biggest so-called Christian Swedish political party, Kristdemokraterna, whose party leader, Ebba Busch, has recently met with Åkesson.

Ebba Busch has also stated that she will not mix with Sverigedemokraterna. She now does, having shared a coffee with Jimmie Åkesson, and thanked him for it.

In January, Ulf Kristersson stated that Sverigedemokraterna are 'more serious' and 'have widened their politics'. He also stated that 'In the conversations we have shared, for example, regarding crime politics, immigration politics, and part of energy politics, I think they have been serious and constructive. And they have been just as constructive as everybody else during the coronavirus pandemic.'

Firstly, 40% of Sverigedemokraterna voters won't vaccinate against COVID-19. This is not constructive nor rational thinking.

Secondly, Ulf Kristersson is a capitalist neoliberal. Sverigedemokraterna have and are mainly targeting religious groups and groups of people who have immigrated to Sweden. Their main line of thinking, where this is concerned, goes against reason; they believe immigrants 'ruin' Sweden.

I wonder how Moderaterna and Kristdemokraterna try and defend against the rational.

There's a site named SD-citat.nu, which only displays links to news articles about insane things that Sverigedemokraterna politicians have generated.

These politicians are sentenced for hate speech, spreading conspiracy theories, writing racist and Nazi stuff, and even faking the identity of another person, to mention some of what's been reported on during the past month, and that's just a handful of things that have come up. Mind you, these are the persons chosen to represent Sverigedemokraterna, i.e. not their voters.

While Ebba Busch, the leader of Kristdemokraterna, is slowly killing her own standing in her party by trying to snatch the living quarters from a 80-year-old man, Ulf Kristersson engages more and more with Sverigedemokraterna.

How do you get a Moderaterna voter to adhere to fascism? Ask them whether Sverigedemokraterna are serious and constructive, and check the answer. It's likely to be along the lines of 'I'm not racist, but', or some other sort of irrational somersault.

I'm currently reading Laurence Rees's new book, Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War. Its main purpose is to compare the two dictators.

On facebook, I recently posted about how Moderaterna abet fascism by posting a faked picture of Ebba Busch holding Mein Kampf while stating she hade a lovely coffee with Jimmie Åkesson, the Sverigedemokraterna party leader. The original picture is from her instagram, where she held a coffee cup (not Mein Kampf).

One person piped up: 'Socialdemokraterna did this and that during WW2'; Naturally, whataboutism from a white man. Said whataboutism fell flat: what somebody did wrong (75 years ago) doesn't excuse or explain what's happening today. I'm not a follower of Socialdemokraterna, nor did he explain why he commented as he did.

'You posted doctored pictures', he added.

This from a reddit-obsessed person who's possibly the only person on Earth other than myself who's spread more memes.

Doctored. As though anybody would believe a political-party leader would carry around Mein Kampf while giving off a little smirk.

On the other hand, let's play to his advantage. We can go back to WW2 to see how people reacted to the irrational.

Foreign statesmen could also succumb to the supposed allure of Hitler’s presence. The Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King met Hitler in 1937 and thought that his eyes had ‘a liquid quality about them which indicate[s] keen perception and profound sympathy’. King believed that Hitler was ‘really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good’.

Once again, however, this was a case of an individual meeting Hitler who already had at least partial sympathy for his views. Just after his encounter with Hitler, Mackenzie King had lunch with the German Foreign Minister, Neurath, and listened without protest to his analysis of why it had been necessary to curb the alleged power of the Jews. The following year King fought hard against admitting Jews to Canada in the wake of the German takeover of Austria.

Laurence Rees, Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War

Sadly, Åkesson possesses no such qualities; he severely lacks magnetism, and, more importantly, facts. He tends to lie, something that the following BBC interview didn't allow him to get away with a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKtZ05rzKGE

Åkesson direly needs to try and snatch back Sverigedemokraterna votes, or Moderaterna won't be able to fell Sverigedemokraterna, who are otherwise likely to win the next governmental election.

This is closely followed in the media.

Another thing, Sverigedemokraterna recently noted that they will stop Swedish TV if they would have power to do so.

Åkesson noted that he would do the same with Swedish radio if he were in power; this, just after he was roasted live by a comedian (which all Swedish political-party leaders were).

A reaction that befits a petulant child. Recognise that type of behaviour? Is that rational and constructive? If things don't go your way, you threaten to raise walls against Mexico or invade Poland.

Like I indicated, my facebook friend listed things out of fear, or perhaps fright, of what Moderaterna have done.

Shortly after he became Chancellor, Hitler pushed through legislation that authorized the sterilization of Germans who suffered not just from diseases like schizophrenia but also from conditions like ‘severe alcoholism’. The Nazis sought to justify this step by pointing to the laws of the animal kingdom. The short propaganda film Das Erbe (Heritage), released in 1935 and intended to promote the value of forced sterilization, starts with a scene in which a well-meaning but naive student suggests that the insects that are being studied in the laboratory would have ‘lived quietly’ had they been left in the forest. She is gently chided by her professor, who tells her that ‘a quiet life can’t be found anywhere in nature’ and that animals ‘all live in a permanent struggle whereby the weak are destroyed’.

Laurence Rees, Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War

It's not hard to discuss matters with rational people.

The problem is trying to discuss rational matters with irrational people. One must not try and vex them (even though I cared little about this with my initial post, the purpose of which was to rustle leaves and see what was underneath. I know, facebook is the wrong place for rational discussions (mainly due to how it's constructed and by who).

The Swedish election is next year. Until then, as Noam Chomsky has said, 'It is always enlightening to seek out what is omitted in propaganda campaigns.'

We'll see for how long Ulf Kristersson keeps his next promise. Any person who votes for Moderaterna should rethink that choice or be irrational.