Racism and rape fantasies: A PR headache for Finland's new government
Racism and rape fantasies: A PR headache for Finland's new government
The incoming economy minister has addressed a rally organised by neo-Nazis, while the Speaker of Parliament has a decades-long track record of race-related court convictions and deeply disturbing blog postings.
The public perception of these people is definitely a PR nightmare, but the real tangible worry for me is that they are, simply put, morons. Their competence is in social media marketing and criticizing others. When it comes to actual policy, they'll mostly just go with whatever Kokoomus tells them to do - often hurting their own voters.
I think there's a saying along the lines of 'never ascribe to maliciousness what can be explained by stupidity'.
I'm not really well versed in Finnish politics, but I can say that I've met my share of high-functioning morons and I was glad they didn't try politics, because they surely would have succeded. (Of course there are numerous examples from world politics of ones that have indeed succeeded...)
"High-functioning morons" - love it!
So basically any right wing party?
At least the racist type, yes. The economic right wing parties often contain somewhat smart people, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do the damage they often do.
The decline in Finnish political discourse for the last 20 years can be mostly attributed to the (Rudimentary) Finns Party.
That Vilhelm Junnila guy had literally an election ad with the slogan "On the 14th day, vote 88" in 2019. 88 was his election number.
Meanwhile several Finnish tabloids have made more hitpieces about Sanna Marin recently than these clowns entering the government.
"In 2006 he implied he would be "exclusively happy if a 'gang of immigrants' raped" a Green party MP.
"I still and will continue to sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that if a woman who opposes the deportation of immigrant rapists is raped by an immigrant rapist, it is a happy thing," he later wrote."
This is the "rape fantasy"- portion of the news article.
Far right going to far right.
So, when should I be worried about these people? Yes, they may be stupid, but collectively they are dangerous.