the scandi countries are used like a political football in the USA, and it's so weird to me.

The left started it talking about the Nordic model of social democracy. People online called it socialism, and it's not.

It's just big government, with the advantages and disadvantages that brings. High tax, excellent public services. It suits the swedes and works in ways it wouldn't in many other places.

The right used the poor integration of the immigrant population and ensuing riots as an example of the failures of said non existant socialism

The truth is that they mass migrated far too many people at once for any integration to be possible, and the culture in sweden is really not something that you can integrate into regardless of race It's a very odd place.

Much of the things that are misunderstood about sweden come from not having any real contact with the culture. It's hyperconformist and has the worst tall poppy syndrome I have personally witnessed.

Anyone standing out gets hammered down super fast. The best insight I can give in a short space is that the Swedish word for envious is svartsjukar. This means the black sickness. The subtle mean girls' style bullying there is off the charts. My friend was accused of alcoholism because she drank a 2 litre box of wine in 2 weeks.

But since the 60s there, one of the main ways they compete is about who is the most progressive. They are real fascists about it. That self flagellation is visible in the film midsommar and it's reception in sweden.

And even more so in the film border. About an autistic-ish ugly woman that works for border control that discovers she is a troll with a lady Penis, which comments on how female led the culture is, and was directed by a Muslim immigrant. This blatant piece of misogyny and racism was cheered in sweden, because if you criticised it, it left you open to accusations of racism and misogyny.

This hyperconformism is why they didn't need to mandate masks or vaccines. Everyone just complied.

Decades of this hyperconformism led to the police force there being largely vestigial. They are ruthless with minor public order events, but haven't dealt with organised crime there since the biker wars of the 80s. (Rocket launchers through the windows of club houses, grenades and machine guns. It was an actual war.)

This unpreparedness for crime, coupled with this terror of being called racist allowed immigrant gangs to flourish. This drove unspoken racism.

I know this because I have spent significant time there. I love the place. The nature is the most beautiful I have seen. But would I live there? Fuck no.