Finland headed to the polls on Sunday to elect thousands of councillors in a range of local and regional bodies.
The Social Democrats took a big win in the municipal elections, taking nearly one in four votes nationwide to push the National Coalition Party of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo into second place.
In the county council elections, for 21 regional bodies that arrange social and healthcare outside Helsinki, the SDP also topped the poll. The Centre Party recorded a good result in its rural heartlands to secure third spot.
Government parties did poorly, with all but the NCP losing support compared to the previous municipal elections in 2021. Turnout in the municipal election was 54.2 percent, while the county elections saw 51.7 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The dual vote for municipal and county councils caused logistical issues for election officials, with counting slower than usual for Finland, where large numbers vote in advance and results are usually clear within a couple of hours of polls closing.
The Finns Party saw support collapse compared to the last municipal election, with the party nearly halving its vote from four years ago. They lost support in several towns that are seeing hospital services cut back as part of the central government’s savings drive.
Under the Far Right government in Finland, homelessness increased.
Now, maybe Finland can get back to having real public options available for housing without asking if anyone ‘deserves’ to have a roof over their heads.
The Far Right, no matter the country, always succeed in turning everything good about civilization into shit exclusively for themselves. If we ever have another national election in the United States, I don’t think the Far Right fascists will be able to win anything.
(and that, admittedly, is an incredibly hopeful view)
You’re forgetting trump promised to make it so that you’d never “have to” vote again!
Trump has won again, despite how he acted last time.
He did weirdly less than he could have in his first term. Most Americans did not directly suffer the way they and the rest of the world are now.
It’s also a two-party system, so it’s not super easy just to vote out one ideology.
Yes due to harris and the Democrats abandoning their base to cater to trumps.
Trump’s base used to be the democrat base. Blue collar workers getting screwed by corporations. Democrats are polling so low because their actions led to this group being overlooked.
Even being lied to feels good after you’ve been taken for granted / ignored. At least you feel seen.
I still somewhat struggle to explain to myself why he won.
I’ve considered it being a protest vote, not one with a clear goal or particular signal in mind, but just as a F you to whomever was in power, but that doesn’t explain why people worship him.
I’ve considered it being a result of conspiracy theories and his ability to use those to his advantage by occasionally partial recognizing them and playing along with the story, but that doesn’t explain why over half the country would vote for him.
I’ve considered it being a consequence of Moscow trying to destabilize the US by supporting a candidate that is easily bought or manipulated. Although there definitely has been some interference, believing it to be effective to an extent of swaying the elections seems almost like wishful thinking at this point.
In the end, I’m still not entirely sure what it is. Maybe you’re right and it’s really that simple.
Harris was the “more of the same” candidate. If you saw things getting better, that sounded good. If you’re in pain, that’s more pain.
There’s a lot of America in pain.
those are a bunch of rationalizations. working americans have been pissed for decades and things have not improved. its why everything is going to go tits up for the rest of the decade.
they dont care about trump. they’re pissed no one represents them anymore and life keeps getting harder. there is a reason cars are starting to be lit of fire.
There’s also that Biden basically sabotaged the democrat campaign by stepping down only at the last minute, and then proceeding to pressure Kamala to not distance her campaign from the Biden campaign
It could be a bit of them all; his base isn’t large enough on its own but, together with those who wanted to protest vote and those looking for relief from the economy and those who hated the idea of voting for a black woman, they may’ve all been enough to get him over the finish line.
maybe you should consider why. its not because people miss cheney or care about the border. but running candidates like ‘nothing will change’ and ‘I cant think of anything different i’d do’ might not be a good strategy.
It’s almost like everything all the time always gets worse under any type of far right governance.
And yet people keep falling for it.
Unburdened by any attachment to reality, they can paint a very appealing rhetorical picture.
Fascism did really well the last time around until Hitler got to do stuff, too.
I don’t get it, why can’t people around the world vote in left wing anti-establishment parties when the status quo gets frustrating?
The far right time and time again have proven to be ineffective at their job and people get tired of them. But they can appeal to emotions?
Are the radical left really that boring? Is the message “for the people” not as sexy as “kill those who don’t look like us?”
The message “we could all share and the owner class might willingly transition to more circular/community-managed economies!” is not as sexy as “we’ll get
yoursforfrom you, 'cause we’re the best and we know you deserve to feel special!”people like the easy way out when both options sound plausible but one sounds like it probably has less steps and therefore might be easier to achieve (???)
who can really know where mental gymnastics are learned. surely they develop slowly over time, like any type of flexibility…
Hear me out.
Even left radicalism is kind of about - “Fuck those people” thinking. Instead of immigrants it’s the rich.
I want to know why this doesn’t seem as appealing as “I hate brown/muslim/black/even more than me poor people”.
I think it’s because of propoganda. The rich can pay for expensive ads and redirect anger. The facist target of the day can’t do this.
Yeah. Once upon a time both were feared as massive threats to the established order, which was at that time still pretty empire-y. Now, there’s broad consensus that actually, Africans are people too, and that it’s good when there’s some social mobility. You’d expect classlessness and international siblinghood to be easier to sell because of that, but apparently not so.
Maybe it’s just the memory of the Cold War? Young people go left at least as much as right everywhere that I’ve heard of. On this side of the Atlantic there’s very little youth support for the far right, and it’s demographically evenly distributed in western Europe, while the hard left has youth support on both.
I’m really not good at the sales part, but I think if you want to hit the monkey brain you go for “eat the rich”.
“for the people” is hard and requires work to solve some very tough problems that were put in our system many many years ago, that requires people to work to better the lives of others without seeing immidiate betterment themselves.
“fuck those other people” is a very very easy solution to a problem I may or may not have just made up.
Honestly, I feel like the far left skips over the hard and complicated stuff far too much as well, although that’s not why they’re polling behind.