American millennials who grew up fetishizing Europe as a progressive/socialist utopia are in for a rude awakening over the next couple of years. People forget Europe is a collection of literal ethno-states.
Europe is in a very dire place economically and anti-immigrant anger is reaching a boiling point in many countries (easier to point fingers at brown people than face up to decades of poor policy choices you yourself voted for).
At least Sweden is in relatively "better" shape than its peers. Germany, France, the UK, are also all drinking this cocktail but much worse; fiscally insolvent, unwilling to have kids, unwilling to pivot to new economic models, and scapegoating brown people while staring down the barrel of never-ending benefits cuts and tax increases (which will further kill their economy).
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
While Americans were ritually flogging themselves for being racist during the 2010s, nobody seemed to bother asking the question "Compared to what?"
Well, it turns out in the "progressive utopia" of the Nordics, immigrants face some of the highest rates of job discrimination in the developed world, with Sweden being in the worst group [1]. The US on the other hand is all the way on the other end of the spectrum, almost egalitarian in hiring by comparison.
> France is the country with the highest
level of discrimination, followed by Sweden. By contrast, Germany, Norway, and
the United States have lower rates of discrimination.
It specifically contrasts Sweden and Norway, you just make it a „Nordic“ thing through confirmation bias.
> People forget Europe is a collection of literal ethno-states.
Because they aren’t.
> The US on the other hand is all the way on the other end of the spectrum, almost egalitarian in hiring by comparison.
It says Germany is on the other hand of the spectrum, similar to the US.
Norway charts less racist because of the oil wealth. This is my point.
Being progressive is easy when you're rich. When the economy stops growing though, we learn that socialism and immigration are like oil and water.
This lines up exactly with the heel turn I'm talking about (that study is 7-8 years old, before Europes energy apocalypse). Germany, UK, France, etc are rapidly heading in the opposite direction now due to their de-industrialization. Anti-immigrant parties are all rapidly rising in support there (AfD is now Germany's most popular party for example).
Nobody wants to pay for "others" to show up on day 1 and start enjoying the fruits of the communal pie, when that pie is not growing.
When the pie is growing buoyed by the richest sovereign wealth fund in the world (Norway), suddenly we get charitable and progressive again.
Because these are the same people who will sip champagne while lecturing you about how ethical and "evolved" they are and how much they care about the poor and the environment.
Meanwhile in reality they're more racist than a backwoods redneck from Mississippi.
I wouldn't care so much if they didn't do all this constant smug posturing at conferences around the world as if their society is somehow morally superior.
If when a fawning 26 year old NY Times journalist interviews Swedish people they were to say; "Yea, I mean it only works because we're a tiny homogenous population, we're extremely racist and the only reason we willingly accept more social redistribution is due to this tiny homogeneity"...I'd have less vitriol.
Europe is in a very dire place economically and anti-immigrant anger is reaching a boiling point in many countries (easier to point fingers at brown people than face up to decades of poor policy choices you yourself voted for).
At least Sweden is in relatively "better" shape than its peers. Germany, France, the UK, are also all drinking this cocktail but much worse; fiscally insolvent, unwilling to have kids, unwilling to pivot to new economic models, and scapegoating brown people while staring down the barrel of never-ending benefits cuts and tax increases (which will further kill their economy).
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
While Americans were ritually flogging themselves for being racist during the 2010s, nobody seemed to bother asking the question "Compared to what?"
Well, it turns out in the "progressive utopia" of the Nordics, immigrants face some of the highest rates of job discrimination in the developed world, with Sweden being in the worst group [1]. The US on the other hand is all the way on the other end of the spectrum, almost egalitarian in hiring by comparison.
[1] https://sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-6/june/SocSci_v...