Danish politics thread 2016

nope, turns out, that's the movie. huh.

It's the debut feature by Nicolaj Arcel, who was later oscar-nominated for A Royal Affair. He is pretty good. The plot is fictional, but it's heavily based on real stories from Danish politics, so I can see how it would seem kinda insular.

What percentage of your citizens are thriller novelists? What percentage are elves?

Denmark rhymes with Netherlands

Also, Demmark has two syllables, like Holland

Is this really a thing y/n and if so why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcJZ3-cJKc

That's The Kingdom by Lars von Trier! Other than that, I'm not sure I get the question?

lol i was looking for a clip of that rant earlier

I know Riget/The Kingdom well! I just mean: is Swede vs. Danish bigotry actually a thing or is that just a ridiculous character trait of a ridiculous character.

I am always confusing Denmark and California
http://www.elverhoj.org/images/history/Solvang.jpg

From that place, I assume that every Danish city must decide how to best divide its resources between the production of Æbleskiver, wine, tchotchkes, and year-round christmas stores.

Sweden vs Denmark is def a thing, especially as the politics of the two countries has changed. Basically, Swedes seem to think of Denmark - accurately - as a conservative hellhole, and Danes use Sweden the way The Atlantic uses college students. #NotAllSwedes, though, spent 10 days in Gothenburg talking cinema, almost everyone seems to think that Danish cinema is much more exciting that their own, which of course I disagree with.

And then there are Norwegians, whom nobody really cares about, but they always butt in with denigrating comments about Denmark and Sweden. And we have no response, for nobody cares about Norway. There's a film about that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTWtILWG0rc

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/03/10/liberal-harsh-denmark/

Visitors to Denmark will find the Danish flag on everything from public buses to butter wrappers; many of the country’s defining institutions, from its universal secondary education (Folkehøjskoler—the People’s High Schools) to the parliament (Folketinget—the People’s House) to the Danish national church (Folkekirken—the People’s Church) to the concept of democracy itself (Folkestyret—the Rule of the People) have been built to reinforce a strong sense of folke, the Danish people.

But in Denmark, the police force is regarded as an extension of the social welfare system and [social worker] Pedersen also makes it clear, to the young men especially, that he works closely with law enforcement. As last year’s shooting reveals, it doesn’t always work. But city officials in Copenhagen and in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, describe some cases in which local authorities, drawing on daily contact with young and often disaffected Muslims, including jihadists returning from Syria, have been able to preempt extremist behavior.

Good article. 'Folke' is not a word, though (It's a name). It's Folk or Folket. And it's not 'Folkehøjskoler', it's just 'Folkeskolen'. Folkehøjskoler is something else.

Oh man, I was watching a film tonight - Even Dwarves Started Small - and meanwhile Danish politics exploded. As you all know, we have a parliamentary system in Denmark. There are four parties currently supporting the liberal government, under Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. Well, the smallest party, the conservatives, just said tonight that they've lost confidence in another minister, the one for Farming and the Environment - if that sounds like an unusual combination, it is! - as she's put forth math on a plan which all experts says is misleading, and has refused to admit it. This happens from time to time, but it was really blatant this time.

Normally, this would mean that the minister resigns, and a new one is chosen. But the prime minister has so far decided to play tough, and tweeted that the right wing parties would take a meeting to see if they could still form a government. If the minister doesn't resign, and isn't fired, the conservatives only has the choice of either taking down the government, or having their bluff called, which would be massively embarrassing.

So, y'know, we might get another election, less than a year after the last one. At the very least, it's very entertaining.

This is so much fun. It's the Danish version of when Boehner resigned, I think. And we might get a new election out of it!

How u like them bears

Drama in Danish politics! We're getting a new government! It'll still be a right-wing government, but where before there was only one party in government supported by three other parties, the Prime Minister has asked two of the smaller supporting parties to join his government. Talks begin monday. This'll be fun.

Problem is, the four parties are so far apart. There's the Libertarians, who thinks lower taxes for the rich means everything. There's the Conservatives, who has been decimated as the populists have overtaken their patriotism. There's the Populists, our Trump-lites, who is the biggest party of them all with 37 mandates. And then there's the Liberals, the ones in charge, who has had the Prime Minister post for 12 of the last 15 years, but has lost a lot of mandates due to the scandals of Lars Løkke Rasmussen. This is not an easy coalition, the parties are far apart on a lot of things, and the leading party, the Liberals, are becoming weaker and weaker.

The problem is taxes. The Libertarians has promised to take down the government if they don't get a 5% tax cut to the riches, while the Populists, who has almost three times as many mandates as the Libertarians, has promised to block such a cut. There's almost nothing to do about it, so Lars Løkke Rasmussen will try and get the Libertarians to change their minds by giving him posts in government...

He is basically buying them off with positions, that is now held by members of his own party. The real fun is that there was a second possibility: He could resign and let someone else have a fresh start, so he basically chose to fire his party-members to safe his own job. Such a great leader. He has already come close to being fired as leader of the party due to his many many scandals, and I'm guessing they all feel really happy for sticking with him now.

Wow, that was quite long. The reason I wanted to post it is to remind everyone how hard it is to govern, especially in a coalition between the rich elite and populists promising to focus on helping the little man, a coalition that is always based on deceit to begin with :) It can all come tumbling down quite easily.

Mette Frederiksen: Classic or dud?