If Canadian Provinces voted in the US Election: Biden +68

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

No need to be sorry. I am a dane on an american politics board. I certainly welcome discussion on danish politics.

The thing is this: When the danish social democrats moved hard right on immigration and law & order, they knew what they were doing. You may look at their vote total and be unimpressed, but the point was not voter maximization. The point was gaining back a lot of voters who had abandoned the social democrats in favour of particularly the right wing populist danish peoples party. In doing this they knew they would lose a bunch of their old voters to the other center-left and left wing parties, but that really didn't matter since those parties would all support a soc.dem led government. So the strategy was clearly a succes and continues to be so.

However, I personally feel that they have taken this approach way further than needed and at some point the dam is going to break and the other left wing parties won't stand for it anymore. It's about finding the balance and I personally don't think that balance is particularly difficult to find. Basically, the position should be to have harsh policies to restrict immigration but on the other hand treat the immigrants who are actually here well. The latter is most certainly NOT the path the socdems have taken at the moment and I find it quite infuriating.

I understand that immigration is an issue in Nordic countries that has been chronically mishandled over the last few decades by parties on both the right and left allowing the rise of a far-right being the only voice for those opposed to immigration. Yet fundemtatly these parties platforms go beyond immigration and while voters may have initially moved to them because of immigration they do not remain on the left if they vote for a far-right party. They get locked into a certain media and social sphere which shifts all their views to the right.

They might be economically populist but culturally I don't think they can stomach voting for a left party that doesn't totally abandon any left-wing social policy which the danish social democrats haven't done. We can see this reflected in the election vote-share, the main reason a left coallation was viable were gains by the far-left Socialist party and the pro-immigration liberal party, the DPP collapsed with it's seats mainly going to more centerist right-wing parties.

I think the number of parties of the Danish political system helps mask the problem with left but fundetmatly once memory of the DPP and their failure wears off, the dam will break as you said and the other left-wing parties won't stand for it. Voters will start to move back to the DPP and next election a right-collation will be viable especially as their is no longer any stigma against the DPP being in an election coallation.

The thing I think you are overlooking is that the danish peoples party for 20 years had been moving hard left on economic policies, basically trying to position themselves as "social democrats who wants to get rid of the muslims" to put it bluntly. For this reason the social democrats had been bleeding voters to the DPP for years and years. These voters are not right wing and we don't have a right wing media bubble the way that the US does, for instance. These voters are generally in favour of the welfare state and many of them will rather vote for SD with anti-immigration policies than for DPP with social democratic welfare policies, particularly because the DPP aren't very succesful advancing their economic policies while supporting right wing governments, while the social democrats are VERY succesful at advancing their anti-muslim policies while in government because the left wing parties can't do much about it unless they want to actively overturn the government, which they don't.

But we don't really disagree that much, I think. As I said I think there's a limit to how far the SocDems can push this and I personally feel like they have gone way too far already. The supporting parties can't really do much about it at the moment though, but I think the SocDems would be wise to dial it back a notch or two.

But I am impressed with your knowledge about danish politics. Where are you from?

Singaporean, our elections are pretty boring one-sided affairs( though the last one was fun, thanks to us having tv debates and unconventional campaigning because of covid) so election junkies like me have to seek our entertainment from the outside.

Has anybody made a Sankey diagram of were voters who the DPP lost went ? because from the raw results it seems most of them just went too centre-right parties rather than the DPP. Also are you sure their isn't a far-right media bubble ? because from what I read a lot of the scandavian far-right parties aren't just generic anti-immigration but have the shared narrative of it being a conspiracy by globalists to replace the native population which probably wouldn't exist without a media bubble.

Hmm, I'm coming from this from an outside perspective of reading debates between british labour party members on the results, because after the Corbyn loss a lot of UK labour party members satisfied between those who think that the best way to get back into power is U right on social issues to bring back the working class while others who think maybe having had no position on the biggest issue of the day was the reason for the loss. (The largest group just blamed the media for being unfair).

[TopShelfGoal]

Even George W. Bush was nowhere near 10% in Danish polls. I bet Trump would struggle to hit 5% here.

You guys have a great pm btw

Well, it could be a lot worse. She's a strong political performer, but the thing is that she and her party has basically cracked how social democratic parties can regain and retain power in western countries and I feel that this is going to be modelled by social democratic parties all throughout Europe in the upcoming years. That is all good and well, but my problem with it is that their approach is also DEEPLY cynical and populist, bordering on being a "spinocracy", where their entire political platform is basically design to attain power for the sake of power itself. I do recognize that some level of populism is probably needed for the center left to regain the working class voters, but for my money the danish social democrats have taken it a step too far and also a step further than what is actually needed to attain power.

Sorry if this is a bit uncouth of me to say as a non-dane but I find social democrats and other left-winger crowing over how the danish election proves Social democratic parties need to go  right in immigration misleading. Like the social democrats lost votes last election with the center-right gaining the most. Frankly Denmark is more recursion to the mean as voters realize that right-wing populists simply don't have the solutions to the problems they claim rather than some sort of new ground-breaking proof that they need move right on immigration

No need to be sorry. I am a dane on an american politics board. I certainly welcome discussion on danish politics.

The thing is this: When the danish social democrats moved hard right on immigration and law & order, they knew what they were doing. You may look at their vote total and be unimpressed, but the point was not voter maximization. The point was gaining back a lot of voters who had abandoned the social democrats in favour of particularly the right wing populist danish peoples party. In doing this they knew they would lose a bunch of their old voters to the other center-left and left wing parties, but that really didn't matter since those parties would all support a soc.dem led government. So the strategy was clearly a succes and continues to be so.

However, I personally feel that they have taken this approach way further than needed and at some point the dam is going to break and the other left wing parties won't stand for it anymore. It's about finding the balance and I personally don't think that balance is particularly difficult to find. Basically, the position should be to have harsh policies to restrict immigration but on the other hand treat the immigrants who are actually here well. The latter is most certainly NOT the path the socdems have taken at the moment and I find it quite infuriating.

I certainly don't think the Danish PM is "great" as Horus is suggest. To be honest, a large proportion of Republicans and maybe even Trump would find some of the policies of Danish government to be distasteful. The "refugee island", the "confiscating assets of refugees" and the "ghetto" policies are so over the top cartoonish that they won't fly here in the US. Yeah we have had our ugly situations such the ICE detention centers but they were widely unpopular in the public opinion and did not happen via an act of congress.

Whereas on the otherhand in Denmark it seems most of the public is behind these draconian and seemingly largely symbolic policies and seems to want more of them. One of my friends here moved from Denmark a few years ago so I have gotten into Danish politics due to that and I am not impressed. I understand that immigration for whatever reason has consumed the imagination of the Danish public and the SoDems are just meeting the public opinion where it is but it's still ugly and it seems other Scandinavian countries have handled this issue in a much more reasonable manner without surface level cartoonishly evil sounding policies. I think Denmark would have a much worse reputation in the world if their media was in English. The world has an idealistic view of that country which does not always match reality. I certainly wouldn't have known or bothered to look into the stuff there if it wasn't for my Danish friend.

[BlueSwan]

No need to be sorry. I am a dane on an american politics board. I certainly welcome discussion on danish politics.

The thing is this: When the danish social democrats moved hard right on immigration and law & order, they knew what they were doing. You may look at their vote total and be unimpressed, but the point was not voter maximization. The point was gaining back a lot of voters who had abandoned the social democrats in favour of particularly the right wing populist danish peoples party. In doing this they knew they would lose a bunch of their old voters to the other center-left and left wing parties, but that really didn't matter since those parties would all support a soc.dem led government. So the strategy was clearly a succes and continues to be so.

However, I personally feel that they have taken this approach way further than needed and at some point the dam is going to break and the other left wing parties won't stand for it anymore. It's about finding the balance and I personally don't think that balance is particularly difficult to find. Basically, the position should be to have harsh policies to restrict immigration but on the other hand treat the immigrants who are actually here well. The latter is most certainly NOT the path the socdems have taken at the moment and I find it quite infuriating.

I understand that immigration is an issue in Nordic countries that has been chronically mishandled over the last few decades by parties on both the right and left allowing the rise of a far-right being the only voice for those opposed to immigration. Yet fundemtatly these parties platforms go beyond immigration and while voters may have initially moved to them because of immigration they do not remain on the left if they vote for a far-right party. They get locked into a certain media and social sphere which shifts all their views to the right.

They might be economically populist but culturally I don't think they can stomach voting for a left party that doesn't totally abandon any left-wing social policy which the danish social democrats haven't done. We can see this reflected in the election vote-share, the main reason a left coallation was viable were gains by the far-left Socialist party and the pro-immigration liberal party, the DPP collapsed with it's seats mainly going to more centerist right-wing parties.

I think the number of parties of the Danish political system helps mask the problem with left but fundetmatly once memory of the DPP and their failure wears off, the dam will break as you said and the other left-wing parties won't stand for it. Voters will start to move back to the DPP and next election a right-collation will be viable especially as their is no longer any stigma against the DPP being in an election coallation.

The thing I think you are overlooking is that the danish peoples party for 20 years had been moving hard left on economic policies, basically trying to position themselves as "social democrats who wants to get rid of the muslims" to put it bluntly. For this reason the social democrats had been bleeding voters to the DPP for years and years. These voters are not right wing and we don't have a right wing media bubble the way that the US does, for instance. These voters are generally in favour of the welfare state and many of them will rather vote for SD with anti-immigration policies than for DPP with social democratic welfare policies, particularly because the DPP aren't very succesful advancing their economic policies while supporting right wing governments, while the social democrats are VERY succesful at advancing their anti-muslim policies while in government because the left wing parties can't do much about it unless they want to actively overturn the government, which they don't.

But we don't really disagree that much, I think. As I said I think there's a limit to how far the SocDems can push this and I personally feel like they have gone way too far already. The supporting parties can't really do much about it at the moment though, but I think the SocDems would be wise to dial it back a notch or two.

But I am impressed with your knowledge about danish politics. Where are you from?

Singaporean, our elections are pretty boring one-sided affairs( though the last one was fun, thanks to us having tv debates and unconventional campaigning because of covid) so election junkies like me have to seek our entertainment from the outside.

Has anybody made a Sankey diagram of were voters who the DPP lost went ? because from the raw results it seems most of them just went too centre-right parties rather than the DPP. Also are you sure their isn't a far-right media bubble ? because from what I read a lot of the scandavian far-right parties aren't just generic anti-immigration but have the shared narrative of it being a conspiracy by globalists to replace the native population which probably wouldn't exist without a media bubble.

Hmm, I'm coming from this from an outside perspective of reading debates between british labour party members on the results, because after the Corbyn loss a lot of UK labour party members satisfied between those who think that the best way to get back into power is U right on social issues to bring back the working class while others who think maybe having had no position on the biggest issue of the day was the reason for the loss. (The largest group just blamed the media for being unfair).

It's very impressive that a Singaporean has this level of knowledge about the politics of a fairly insignificant European country. :-)

You are absolutely right that the majority of the DPP's voters went to other center-right parties, mainly Venstre. However, a good chunk of them went to SocDem (around 10% based on this poll: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/folketingsvalg/dansk-folkeparti-har-afleveret-laante-vaelgere-retur-til-venstre, which in the close elections we typically have in Denmark, could make all the difference. But the SocDems aren't only grabbing voters from DPP with their harsh anti-immigration policies, but also from other center-right parties.

I view it like this: Denmark is fundamentally a social democratic country. The periods where the social democrats are out of power has rather specific explanations. In the early 80's the perception was that the social democrats had lots handle of the economy and we got a center right government that lasted from 1982 to 1993. From 1993 to 2001 we had a very succesful social democratic governement with rather sublime economic results, but there was growing concern about immigration, a topic that the social democrats were reluctant to adress, while the other center-left parties at the time were pretty aggressively pro-immigration.

This in effect led to the 2001 defeat at the hands of a now much more anti-immigrant center-right. Since then the social democrats have lots election after election on pretty much this one issue and that's why they changed policies. Once they did, people could "safely" return to voting for social democrats like they used to.

Regarding the media, we have very effective public service media in Denmark, which is consumed by just around everybody. Sure there are niche internet "media" that flaunts conspiracy theories, but this is not something that plays a major role in danish politics at all. All of our major newspapers (even our tabloids compared to a place like the UK for instance) are based in a shared agreement on the facts. I will not be getting a radically different view of what is happening in the world from reading Jyllands-Posten (center-right) as opposed to reading Politiken (center-left), but I might want to stay clear of some of their online blogs. When I show my students examples from the US right wing media bubble, they absolutely marvel at the dishonesty. The great white replacement conspiracy is only believed by some loons on the right, as far as I can tell. It is not a point of view that we are ever exposed to in mainstream media, except from by people like Rasmus Paludan from Stram Kurs, who failed to clear the 2% hurdle to gain parliamentary representation in 2019.

Also, none of our TV channels have "opinion hosts". It just doesn't exist here. We have news shows. We have shows that do analysis. We don't have shows where a host just does political hackery. We don't have a Sean Hannity or a Tucker Carlson. We don't even have a Rachel Maddow. If a politician is interviewed they will never get a softball interview (unless on an entertainment show, of course). They will always have to face tough questioning.