You are at the heart of the matter in your thought experiment. And as for the rest of it, every party should rule out the possibility of cooperation with political movements that oppose Western democracy (of which a pro-Russian stance is one clear indication). This applies on both a national and international level. And yes, the aforementioned Social Democrat group should also freeze cooperation with the Social Democrat parties of countries that do not subscribe to the basic values of Western democracy.
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I really don’t understand you comrades. You directed a question to me about a war against Russia along with your acronyms, when I had been wondering about the SDP’s election strategy and most recently Tuppurainen’s claim that a victory for the National Coalition (Kokoomus) leads to extremist movements coming to power. Quite the discussion.
In Finland, the National Coalition (Kokoomus) is in a government coalition with the right-wing populist Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), which has room for all kinds of village idiots and Putinists. According to the party’s own assessment, it contains such unworthy people that this month alone it has expelled one current Member of Parliament and one current Member of the European Parliament from party membership. Both are justified decisions in themselves. Tuppurainen (or rather, the writer of her press release) speculated in a populist electioneering manner about what would happen if, on the EU level, the liberal right were as strange a bunch as Petteri Orpo and entered into political cooperation with such a group. Clear text. What did you not understand?
And why do you want to link Palonen’s comments and the Social Democrats’ election campaign? The fact that you claim in a public discussion that a university researcher of political science is playing party politics instead of doing their work from academic premises is utterly tasteless. A heavy accusation. Especially since your assessment of the person in question, from their party affiliation to their motives, is based solely on the figments of your imagination. You would be ashamed if you understood. But you don’t.
Once again, I repeat my opinion that in this thread, people should only be allowed to write under their own names. It is so damn cowardly to berate other people by name – even questioning their professional competence – from behind a pseudonym. Especially when there is nothing behind the accusations but the products of one’s own imagination and distortions of the “accused’s” statements. However, I do not know if the latter is based on lying or a severe case of reading comprehension problems. Regards, Juha Rantala
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I’ll respond to this point, but I don’t have the energy to discuss with you further due to your insults directed at me. In my opinion, I quite reasonably presented criticism—though perhaps accompanied by too much humor—towards the writer of the article and/or the researcher, or both (what the researcher actually said and what was written are two different things; the article had even been corrected). When telling stories to Yle, she is not conducting research but acting in the role of an expert and inevitably influencing people’s opinions with the authority of a researcher. Based on her own description, she is a researcher of politics, discourse analysis, and populism, whose name I did not want to bring up for the exact reason of not starting to specifically label her. However, through general life experience, it becomes clear when reading her writings that she views the blunders of SDP members and leftists in general more sympathetically than the slip-ups of non-leftists.
I did enough background work that I didn’t start assessing anyone based purely on imagination. Here are two examples among a few others that I don’t have the energy to bring up. On March 6, 2023, in a Yle story, the researcher stated this regarding the case of former minister Lintilä (Center Party/KEPU):
…suspicions about the minister’s alcohol use are a reminder of the major changes in the everyday lives of politicians… According to the researcher, it is also about gender differences in addition to the generation of politicians. Finland has been led by a guard of relatively young women, alongside whom Minister Lintilä’s actions appear deviant, according to the researcher. – For the Center Party, the suspicion does not look good when old-school ways come to light. This does not freshen the Center Party’s image.
However, previously, regarding the party scandal of Sanna Marin (SDP), she showed significantly more understanding. On August 18, 2022, also in a Yle story, she assessed as follows:
Surely this has been about partying as a private individual. She would by no means want to party in this way as Prime Minister.
Additionally, she saw positive aspects in Marin’s partying antics:
It may be that this inspires people to enter politics when politicians do not appear only as stone-faced decision-makers, but also as people who party.
I want to say that personally, I am certainly not sorry if a young person parties. And even an old one can sometimes. However, the Prime Minister partying with a somewhat unusual circle of friends is a different matter if it can result in harm to the entire country, for example, in the form of blackmail.
Furthermore, your argument about the resignation of the editor-in-chief of YDIN magazine—that a schism between her and the publisher would be proof of her non-leftism—is a somewhat poor and even cowardly attempt to water down my background point that it is, in any case, a magazine held by left-leaning editors-in-chief, even if it claims to be non-partisan. According to the website, the support organizations are the Peace Education Institute (Rauhankasvatusinstituutti), the Committee of 100 (Sadankomitea), and the Peace Union of Finland (Suomen Rauhanliitto). I’m not criticizing these organizations as such, nor am I taking a stand on them, but it is generally known that, for example, the activists of the Committee of 100 have been leftists.
Thanks, I’ve had enough of this discussion.
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Anna-Leena Härkönen’s columns have been a pleasure to read for decades. Back in the day, I used to read them in Nykypäivä magazine, for example. Here is her latest piece from Apu magazine:
“I’ve spoken about the censoring of writers before, but I’ll say it again: this is such a shitty profession that nothing more should be added to further paralyze us. A writer depicts the world as it is, not as it should be. Salman Rushdie said in an interview that woke culture is dangerous because it’s about the exercise of power. Indeed.”
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This is quite an interesting thread. Even now, about a dozen posts have been written just to try and turn black into white (or more accurately, red)… A dozen posts, and yet you get the impression that not an inch has been yielded regarding the point where the original discussion started; instead, by continuing the same commie Putinist propaganda, they claim white is black – extremely amusing to watch – do carry on. 
I wonder who the next leftie blunderer will be that is actually far-right? I’m waiting with interest. 
I haven’t followed the thread that much, but could someone clarify just to be sure: are Lipponen, Halonen, Rinne, Tuomioja, and Marin still accepted as comrades, or has one of them already been rebranded as far-right by a comrade writing here?
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You can start, for example, by familiarizing yourself with the terms left-wing populism and right-wing populism on Wikipedia. You can also find examples of representatives of these movements there.
A political scientist from the University of Helsinki is likely a reasonably qualified commentator on the subject.
The far-right and right-wing populism are not synonyms. Things still seem to be getting mixed up.
And since Putin was mentioned, his United Russia party sought EPP membership and many even supported the project. That doesn’t make United Russia a European center-right party. The party certainly doesn’t represent communism either, but rather neofascism. But as has been stated many times, extremist movements are close to each other.
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In fact, this is a very interesting thread. I have every other message silenced, but that only goes to show that visiting this thread—or at least reading the messages—would be a complete waste of time.
I don’t know what the purpose of such constant harping is. I suppose it’s an attempt to create some kind of uncertainty in the local climate of opinion. Or then, in fact much more likely, it’s just a single redneck at work.
There are some posters on the board whose actions suggest they want to derail the conversation or at least use arguing to blunt the edge of other posters’ opinions. I don’t know how coordinated this is or if all these aliases lead back to the same source. But there are several of them in this thread—and that makes the thread extremely interesting. I myself have already silenced several of them because I can no longer handle the constant ignoring of facts and the personal dissing I’ve been subjected to, apparently due to my strong pro-Ukraine stance and my related writings.
A word on politics, too,
The early term of our President Alexander Stubb was evaluated in this article
Even during the elections, it became clear that Finns demand approachability from the president, which going out among the people undoubtedly demonstrates.
It is interesting to see if this will change in light of recent attacks and increased security measures. One would hope that the open public appearances seen in Finland continue; it is a cultural practice that has become sadly rare even in Western countries.
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This is about an old communist who still emphasizes the role of the state. It is quite hard to see anything right-wing in this. The same applies to a large portion of other European populists. For some reason, especially if there is any hint of xenophobia or racism involved, they have started to be classified as ”right-wing populists”.
Maybe researchers should start updating their definitions? I used to consider myself a liberal when I supported adoption rights for gay couples etc., but nowadays, when I am of the opinion that there are two biological sexes, I am apparently an ultra-conservative.
In my opinion, a good example of a populist would be someone like Sanna Marin, who tried to buy votes by offering the public benefits with borrowed money and policies we cannot afford.
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What makes this most interesting is that these individuals only see or comment on things from a one-sided perspective—despite trying hard to convince everyone they are something other than what they so eagerly represent. They try to create as objective an image of themselves as possible, yet they still view things with total blinders on. Of course, terms are then interpreted very broadly when something negative is done by their comrades—at which point the cleverest way seems to be to flip things completely around and keep harping on about the matter for over ten messages… It doesn’t change the truth, of course, but perhaps these guys think that by acting this way they can, for example, mislead one in ten into believing red is white, so in their minds, this constant badgering is clearly worth continuing.
I understand that silencing well enough; I’ve encountered the same thing myself. Well, perhaps it’s even better that way in my case, but it’s amusing in its own right how certain handles here have the energy to twist and turn these things endlessly. Perhaps in the Ukraine thread their propaganda would be too transparent, so they try to bring their “objective” views forward here instead. Nothing wrong with that in itself—in my opinion, everyone is entitled to their own views—but one just can’t be bothered to listen to total lies from anyone.
Has anyone here had time to see that economic program presented by the SDP, which was immediately withdrawn after a quick review showed it to be a total catastrophe? As I understand it, there has been (at least) one new one since then, which isn’t the one I’m looking for; rather, it was the one prior to this latest one that was buried. It would be nice if someone had a link to it, because it’s always good to have a proper laugh every day…
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Could you advise me on how to turn on the mute feature so I don’t have to look for it myself?
It is indeed noteworthy that you decided to list these scandals that shook the republic. Finland endured everything else, but the Vogue covers and “some restaurant/phone episode” were indeed too much. It was enough for Finland’s angry bourgeois old men. We would never forget Sanna 
I actually listed a bit more, just whatever came to mind. Many scandals were left unlisted, but the point was that Marin’s scandals have indeed been discussed a lot.
In my opinion, the media could have addressed the weak performance of the Marin government, rather than just those scandals, some of which certainly contributed to the poor performance, while others were just that traditional personal “revelry” with friends.
Many times, especially Sanna’s fans stated that the misogynists were out in force, but that isn’t a very strong argument. I think if Orpo spent his evenings out in public with drinks, there would be plenty of headlines and condemnation for that too, and rightfully so.
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I suspect you’re capable of better than that. Is Sanna, or any Prime Minister, above criticism? Sanna did indeed do many good things. Is it only a problem for us “old boys”—who, as far as I know, make up a fairly large part of the Finnish population—if the Prime Minister’s actions weren’t always fitting for the dignity of the office? It’s a bit lazy to dismiss all critics as “old boys.” And just as @Opa wrote, there were some quite major issues that one would have hoped to see questioned more rigorously.
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As a comment on a few previous posts.
Political science is a branch of science, not an opinion shop. The tendency to equate science with political views, and to see scientists as being at the very least politically corrupt, is, by the way, one of the most common hallmarks of modern right-wing populism. The most well-known example is the denial of human-induced climate change and equating scientific consensus with political opinion.
However, I recommend familiarizing yourself with both political science and political history in general. Then, for instance, it becomes clear that ideological content cannot be inferred from party names alone. For example, the GDR (East Germany) had Christian and Liberal Democratic parties, but we cannot evaluate the politics of those ideologies based on them, as in that totalitarian state, they were propped up only to serve the objectives of the Communist Party. And the same certainly applies very strongly to today’s Russian politics.
Insinööri’s speculations that those who disagree with him are somehow less pro-Ukraine are as ridiculous as can be. Since I don’t have the energy to follow writers across different threads and track their opinions, I must also state that I don’t even remember any of Insinööri’s other comments on this forum besides our recent debate in the OmaSP thread. In that thread, Insinööri completely lost his temper when I dared to claim that OmaSP has lent heavily to housing companies without the loans being related to renovations. Well, now even the financial newspapers have written about it. There’s no point in getting angry if information is being offered to the uninformed
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Sanna Marin’s “inappropriate for the dignity of the Prime Minister” actions have, during her term and even after, gathered the most criticism from middle-aged and older men representing the opposite political direction. In her case, I believe this demographic distribution of critics has been exceptionally clear, so mentioning it is not, in my view, in any way a low blow.
I believe this discussion about Sanna Marin is enough for now, however. The main point of the story was the current Prime Minister’s public lying, which, quite expectedly, generates less discussion here than… Sanna Marin.
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Ladies, girls, boys, and uncles (setämiehet) and whatever else you may be,
Sometimes self-esteem is perhaps healthily low and one starts to suspect they are on the wrong track. So I went looking for information in the mixed bag of internet sources. Just with Google and a light touch. The target of the search was, of course, what else but POPULISM! Yeah. I got stuck; I wasn’t immune to being called stupid, and apparently, I don’t even know how to be ashamed for being stupid. And you can laugh at this oversensitivity of mine now! A real 
I am.
However, I would now be of the opinion that, according to the at least seemingly credible website of The European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), in the Report on Panel #1 / Mapping European Populism: Populist Authoritarian Tendencies in Central and Eastern Europe, and Challenges to the EU - ECPS (populismstudies.org), SMER, i.e., Fico’s party, represents left-wing populism. Well, this probably isn’t a peer-reviewed article either, but that YLE story isn’t exactly “science” either, even though the comrade tried to hammer it into our brains using the sledgehammer = management by perkele (management by prrkkl) method.
One section translated from the article I attached:
Left-wing populism is strong in Slovakia. It is represented by the Smer–SD (Direction – Social Democracy) party, which is involved in international socialist organizations and is a member of the Party of European Socialists. The party received 18.29 percent of the votes in 2020 and is currently in opposition.
The situation has changed since the article was written on April 26, 2022, and SMER has become the prime minister’s party, and Fico, who was the target of the shooting, leads both the party and the Slovak government.
The Finnish researcher had stated to YLE that the party used to be left-wing populist, but has now turned right-wing populist. Is it then that a change really occurred after April 2022, or is it a matter of doctrinal conflicts between researchers, or what?
In any case, it can probably be stated as a fact (I checked) that the SMER MEP below and the Finnish Social Democrats (DEMARIT) are sitting in the same Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament. I guess it’s quite normal to say in the YLE story that it’s just an ex-left-wing populist, but nowadays definitely a right-wing populist, even though there’s a connection like this to the left as well. Or what is this about if other social democrats ally with a Slovakian right-wing populist? In English: I am a bit confused!
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You’re lying again. The researcher stated, “Fico’s roots are in left-wing populism, but today he emphatically represents pro-Russian right-wing populism.” Fico is not a party, but a person.
As for Smer and the European Social Democrats group, they fortunately have a quite sensible attitude toward the Slovaks:
So they aren’t going in with the same attitude as the Finns Party in the case of Viktor Orbán, whom the likes of both Hakkarainen and Halla-aho have at times understood and at times directly and profusely praised over the years:
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This Fico has apparently changed direction just like Nalle himself! From the left to a market liberal! Wait… no, he hasn’t. I still don’t understand why being pro-Russia or racist would make any populist right-wing. If some academic discipline states this according to current definitions, then something is quite badly wrong, and “science” should renew itself as is its core principle.
Ps. Even here, the biggest Russia-sympathizers throughout history for the last 100 years have been found on the left.
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Apparently, the comrade has now called me a constant liar because I inadvertently wrote “party” even though the researcher had referred to the person, i.e., Fico, in their sentence. Well. I made a mistake there, so hands up to that, but according to Wikipedia, he has led the party he founded at the end of the last millennium since its inception. Could it be then that only Chairman Fico is a right-wing populist in the comrade’s or the researcher’s opinion, but the party led and founded by Fico, which holds government responsibility, is something else!
He founded the Direction – Social Democracy (Smer–SD) party in 1999 and has led that party since its start.
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