Karin Olsson
But as the adult I am, I restrain myself and instead formulate something suitable for a civilized public. Like the chairman of the Judiciary Committee should honor the role and behave with dignity, even if he is furious at a culture writer’s column. It is perfectly possible to criticize journalism and opinion formation without succumbing to hateful judgments of character.
At the same time, the contempt and coarse rhetoric against “establishment media” is one of the pillars on which the Sweden Democrats’ success rests. Across the West, right-wing populist and nationalist politicians paint the media as the enemy of the people. It is a dangerous path, which erodes trust in professional journalism.
I had thought that the grip would lose its power at some point. That after all these years the sympathizers would get tired of the exaggerations and the annoying terminology, which actually also takes oxygen from the relevant media criticism. And that the Sweden Democrats, in line with their growth, would grind down the radical tip.
But a quick inventory of the comments section on Riks – the now independent but close to SD video channel – shows that the grass roots only get happy when Jomshof rolls up his sleeves:
“Hey Jomshof, give em hell!”
“Expressen journalists – complainers who despise ordinary people.”
“Ugh for the Swedish media, what would we have done without Richard?”
They are lyrical.
Richard Jomshof wrote many years ago in a closed discussion on Facebook that the party must adapt its rhetoric to the fact that Sweden is not like Hungary, and that “SD is not in government (yet)”.
There was something ominous about the wording.
It is true that the SD is still not in the government, but they have a great influence on it. In recent days, for example, information has leaked out in the newspaper Journalisten that the parliamentary committee investigating the future of public service (SVT, SR and UR) has broken up.
The opposition parties reserve themselves against the proposal that the Tidö parties intend to support, which, among other things, is said to involve reduced grants. Deteriorations for “left-wing” public services would be a particularly significant victory for Jimmie Åkesson.
My hope for a normalization of the Sweden Democrats’ wild line in media matters was, of course, naive. Everything they have done and said over the years rather indicates that it will get worse the more powerful they become.
Karin Olsson is deputy editor-in-chief at Expressen.
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