Destruction of Reputation

Lo and behold how the mighty have fallen! Yes, we are quoting parts of the bible today. It is that epic. Who is then the mighty that has fallen? If you know anything about swedish politics at the moment you would know that it is the Social Democratic party. Once reigning supreme without question as the governmental party. Of the last 100 years 70 of them being at the helms, carefully navigating world war 2 between the powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and continuing in the Cold War with the Warsaw Pact and NATO on all sides (except our eastern neighbor Finland) and lastly the economic crisis in the 90's and the terrorist in the first years of the new millennium. Producing men and women of power and respect across all parties. There was Hansson, Erlander, Sträng, Palme, Feldt, Carlsson, Persson, Sahlin and Lindh. They had visions, ideas and a way to realize those dreams. Today the party is a broken shadow of its former self. A party that once gathered a support of at least 40 % in election after election is now happy that they only achieved 27,7 % because it could have been much worse. This is not the sign of a healthy party.

It actually gets worse since the party in itself is caught in an internal civil war between the left and right fractions. The left at the moment having the higher ground, since they were able to push a more left-leaning candidate to the position as party leader, are now appearing to go for a purge of the unfaithful within the party. There is fifth columns, traitors, heretics and bought by the capitalistic forces of evil who are sniping from within the party to bring them down, or at least that's what they say. It wouldn't surprise me though. Those on the right side of the conflict... I don't know what they are saying. Most of them seems to feel despaired and even thinking of leaving the party due to the prosecutions from their antagonists. The War of the Roses is in full bloom. Is it on the verge of splitting the party or are they gonna cleanse the air to be able to gather themselves and go forth stronger than before?

Who is then responsible for this destructive force within the party? Is is the new leader Juholt? Juholt who appeared out of nowhere from the chambers of the parliaments defence committee, being there from 1994 without leaving any print of what he did and being overlooked by Persson as a viable minister for 10 years? A man who's rhetoric echoes back to the 1970, but without the class and expertise that Palme filled his speeches with? Juholt who makes promises and changes his stance multiple times on questions over the course of a week or even a day? No, he's just the symptom, a manifestation of the real disease. 

This is a party that needs a strong leader to point out the direction they are heading, a party that saw itself more as a temple for all ho shared the fundamental values, but didn't cast you out for your opinion on certain issues as long as the ultimate goal was in your heart, the social democratic society. That vision doesn't exist any more since it was realized in 1969 and no one has been able to form another political project as important as Folkhemmet in Sweden. The political issues that followed was mostly taken care of by a referendum. That is how they solved the question of nuclear power, European Union, EMU and some others. The special about the three I mentioned is that the party itself is still divided about those questions. Or at least the members, the congress decision is no, yes and yes. So it is a surprise that they have a leader who says yes/no to every question and then changes it? It doesn't help that we are leaving the ideological battle for the political issues of the day, meaning they must decide upon what they think in them all, probably alienating some. Will they succeed? Maybe, although from my own perspective they would probably have to shrink much more, gather the few who stayed and form straight answers in every question and follow it and from there gather support than the current situation in trying to appease all sides. An example, when they were quiet after 2006 only giving vague descriptions on what they are trying to accomplish, S had 45 % of the supporters behind them, but when they gave their budget proposal in May 2010 the support evaporated since people didn't agree on the proposals and it was hardly anything different than the ruling coalitions proposal. Conclusion, S is transparent in the wrong way since no one knows what they stand for and their leader can't point with his whole hand.   Doesn't help that the election of him was so un-transparent that itself become a joke.