Nearly half of Finns now identify as right-wing

https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/27411-nearly-half-of-finns-now-identify-as-right-wing.html

by fotogneric

40 comments

  1. As is their right to do so in a democracy, why is this news?

    Do we get articles from Spain and Germany about how many identify as left wing?

    More nonsense.

  2. “The proportion identifying with the left stands at 31 percent, while only 19 percent consider themselves centrist.”

  3. “A majority of respondents, 53 percent, define themselves as liberal, while 24 percent describe themselves as conservative.”

    “Ideologically, Finns are grouped into four main categories: left-liberals (24 percent), right-liberals (22 percent), right-conservatives (18 percent), and a mixed group (32 percent) with centrist positioning on at least one axis. Only five percent identify as left-conservatives.”

    … wtf is this nonsense??? 😀

  5. What are the right-wing values of the Finns? I can’t imagine its as extreme as the Americans version.

  6. The current Finnish government is truly a cautionary example. They make policy for the wealthiest and most privileged in society at the expense of the middle class and the poor – and in the end, that’s how it goes wherever the right holds power. In many cases, they even line their own pockets.

  7. Isn’t it normal for roughly half the population to consider themselves either left- or right-wing, if we assume that even centrists lean more on one side than the other?

  8. I have always believed in the necessity of a balance between the left and right. A country needs changes in government and its political positions to function properly imo.

    By this I of course don’t mean the far right and far left, those shouldn’t get into positions of power in a healthy society as their ultimate goal is the abolition of democracy and destruction of those who dare to disagree with them.

  11. Did Putin himself write this? The center people, it’s at the center we solve this.

    Don’t give Putin an excuse or Trump the satisfaction.

  12. As long as they are pro EU, pro human rights and anti Russia, be my guest w.e

  13. And?

    Being left or right of whatever the centre is in any given political environment isn’t inherently good or bad. This is reductive nonsense, and extremely US-centric click bait reporting.

  14. The more we accept far-right talking points as part of the ”both sides” conversations, the more the political center point will move to the right. See Overton’s window.

  16. Are they saying 49% of The Finns party consider themselves right-wing?

  17. Deeply disturbing news we’re hearing from Finland. I hope minorities are protected from far-right Finns.

  19. This is not surprising at all when the leftists still start throwing words like “racist” and “nazi” if someone dares to talk about the flaws of our immigration system. Without a leftist party that is also prepared to talk about negative effects of immigration a lof of people will lean to right even if they don’t agree with the economic decisions.

  20. my very hypocritic take: i approve right wing in countries bordering r*ssia

  21. and yet the finns party (right wing) have been falling off in polls??

  23. Well well on most aquatic and aeronautical and some (fancy word for land) vehicles have fins usually one on the right and one on the left.

  24. FYI right-wing here just means right of center. Most right-wing finns support the liberal, pro-EU center-right party. They don’t support parties like the AfD or Reform UK.

  25. They sided with the nazis in ww2, zero surprise there.

  26. Another country soon to be overtaken by the far-right in a few years time, I predict.

  27. Identify??!

    Maybe they feel some right wing measures are needed

    Politics ain’t no football mentality

  28. Surprised it’s that high. I genuinely expected Finn’s to be around 1/3 right, 1/3 left and 1/3 dorsal.

  32. Ffs maybe decades of anti-communists propaganda has done nothing but build the right

  33. Good. Today’s left are a threat to western civilization.

  34. That’s called a potential Russian invasion, not agreeing with Donald Trump.

    See?

    Isn’t it simple when you know how it works?

  36. This is so hilariously out of context it highlights how 50% of people are dumber than the median.

    We quite commonly use the Nolan chart when discussing local politics over here. The political chart is two dimensional, not the abomination of a line the US has. Parties historically work across the axises in government to get shit done.

    The right leaning party voters here also tend to include some people who vote for the Greens (an environmental pro-EU pro-science party), the Swedish People’s party (very liberal) and the National Coalition (centre right, probably more left than the democrats).

    We need to stop with this US centric sensational bullshit.

    I quite often see foreigners sharing Helsinki Times articles that seem a bit sensational. We need to collectively chill and focus on the usual: Win the war, be the better continent for its citizen.

  37. Feels like the media is helping tag anyone who isn’t hard left of center as a right wing extremist. It only pushes people further out.

  38. And yet the polls say otherwise, with the Social Democrats on track to receive their best electoral result in over two decades, the Left Alliance and Green League gaining support, and the right-wing populist Finns Party collapsing in support. 

    To be fair though, the Finns Party have managed to recover from low support before as evidenced in the leadup to the 2019 election. It seems to me that the Finns Party (similar to the Republicans in the US) are probably reliant upon low-propensity voters.

  39. I see this trend as a finn. a lot of forums, news articles etc are filled with comments dog whistling. the party that was generally socially liberal/left leaning but fiscally right leaning seems to have most of their younger politicians take more conservative stances.

    Ultimately, i think finnish culture has always been quite ‘conservative.’ New things, standing out, being too ‘out there’ have always been looked down upon. Now that the current coalition in power has done their best to blame the bad economic situation on the few times the (kind of bad honestly) leftist parties in Finland have been in power, i think a lot of people have also subscribed to the idea that leftwing basically just means you never want to work and just abuse the system while idk wearing a rainbow flag.

    It is odd because at the same time, a lot of finns support the idea that elderly, disabled, children etc should be supported and that public healthcare has got dangerously bad over the years, yet the party that really loves the idea of privatizing everything and going to USA model is what a lot vote for.

    Overall, it has been quite an interesting 15 years seeing the shift, and also the overall ‘new right’ tactics if the finns party for example. There is a lot of ‘owning the libs’ going on in their internet presence, which catches the attention of a lot of young voters especially. Honestly, that alone might be the single biggest contributor to the worldwide shift that we have seen happening.

Comments are closed.