Notes

Sweden’s old-new right. Last week, the government in Stockholm presented its budget proposal for the coming year, which includes significant tax cuts for the wealthy. That might not be surprising or even noteworthy, given that the government is composed of a conservative coalition. Only that coalition depends in turn on the support of the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing nationalist party that was until recently promising to reinvigorate the Swedish welfare state. Now, they’re endorsing the same kind of tax cuts they used to oppose.

Also until recently, Sweden’s more traditional right-wing parties shunned the insurgent SD—which was founded in the late 1980s by members of various fascist groups, including the Waffen-SS. But over the last few years, they’ve started to work closely with it—despite the current prime minister having once promised he’d never “collaborate, converse, cooperate, or co-govern” with SD.

So, what’s behind this rapprochement between the new and old right?

Back in 2022, Sweden’s traditional right-wing parties needed SD’s support in order to keep the left out of power. So they struck a bargain, and now we’re seeing the outcome: The new right has been thoroughly integrated with the old—even on economic matters. Which is to say, SD now look like old-style Swedish conservatives, though without the old-style politesse.

Of course, Sweden is a small country; its population of 10 million is comparable to London’s or Dhaka’s. But the political merger on the country’s political right, though perhaps not of much significance globally, echoes events in capitals from Paris to Washington. As many liberals feared, SD have changed Sweden’s conservative mainstream, making it much more hawkish on immigration. Yet in turn, cooperation with the conservative mainstream seems to have changed the Sweden Democrats. True, every once in a while, one of their representatives still makes a racist statement. But it’s hard now to call them fascists and feel serious about it.

—Gustav Jönsson