Does Swedish Vote Signal a New Populism?

Despite all of the fuss about communism in America the past year or two (including at times from yours truly right around the time 'We' became the largest shareholder of a dying automaker), it is true that the US is still nothing close to a bastion of socialist thought. Even if it ends up being nothing more than a Republican spoiler this fall, the Tea Party is a great reminder of that.

However, there are still parts of the world not named Cuba, China or Venezuela which embrace many of the tenets of socialist thought unabashedly. Until a few days ago, Sweden could be counted among this second-level of states which seamlessly integrated socialist ideals into everyday life.  That is, until the nation went the way of fellow EU members such as France, Denmark and the Netherlands in shifting its votes from social democrats and toward Greens, the hard-left and far-right as well as what many in the US would consider to be libertarians.

Paul Taylor of Reuters rightly points out that, 'Technological change and globalization have shrunk the traditional industrial working class and the trade unions, made jobs more precarious and thrown up new issues such as climate change, population aging, immigration, obesity and drugs.' He argues that these factors, as well as the financial crisis and European integration, have had the effect of changing voter allegiances.

While this is all true, Taylor also points out that 'Now that most European countries are burdened with high deficits and debt mountains due to the financial crisis, the "big government" left is not seen as offering a credible answer to the question of where and how to shrink the state.' And this may indeed be the biggest reason for the recent shift in not only the aforementioned EU states, but Britain and the US as well. Perhaps it is reactionary, but the sentiment that more and more government is not the answer to the current malaise is nonetheless a strong one. And it appears that it is becoming increasingly the populist point of view, not just in middle-America, but even in places one might never have suspected as recently as a few years ago.