Rosemari’s Sense of Fib

Rosemari Södergren, a leftist blogger and employee of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, has made some strange comments about Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and a visit he made to the Republican Party during the 2000 presidential election. She is trying to make out that the Moderate Party, of which I’m a member, has ties to the Republicans and that Mr Reinfeldt is now ”hiding his relation with Mr Bush”. She writes:

Officially the conservative Party in Sweden, which Reinfeldt is the leader of, are supporting The Democrats. But then, why participate in the election campaign for the repuclikan candidate Mr Bush? […] It is very strange that the top of the conservatives say they are supporting the democrats but at the same time obviously are also supporting the republicans.

I’m not sure where she gets this idea from, but my guess is that Mr Reinfeldt’s support for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election has something to do with it. It’s untrue nonetheless. The Moderate Party has expressed official support for neither the Democrats nor the Republicans.

Progressive Moderates shouldn’t adjust to the left-wingers and their obsession with American politics and George Bush. The Moderate Party is not a conservative party per se, although many of its members are. Personally, I’m very much a libertarian representative of the Moderate Party. It is true, however, that some Moderates sympathise with Bush’s politics. It is also true that some Social Democrats sympathise with Fidel Castro. This does not mean that the Moderates are pro-Bush or that the Social Democrats are fascistic communists. That would be a corny suggestion.

The Social Democrats need an enemy they can bash rhetorically. That is why they so desperately try to label their opponents ”conservative” and pro-Bush—by doing so they hope to establish a self-image of radicalism and progressivism. The truth, however, is that Swedish present-day conservatism—in nearly every sense of the term—is tightly tied to the Social Democrats, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, and people like Rosemari Södergren.

Furthermore, we must not forget that the Social Democrats and former PM Göran Persson expressed great affection for President Bush while in government. It was not until they were forced out of office that they joined the extreme left and engaged in fierce anti-Americanism.