Magdalena Andersson tries “The Chicago Way” in the matter of partisan lotteries. If the government tries to close the Social Democrats’ lotteries, S intends to fight back.
In the movie “The Untouchables”, scarred cop Jim Malone tries to teach the younger, greener cops a lesson.
– If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the graveyard. That’s the Chicago Way.
Magdalena Andersson may have recently seen that film and decided to follow Malone’s advice. The government wants to investigate the possibilities of banning party political lotteries, which have been a very lucrative breeding ground for the Social Democrats and the youth union SSU. So when the government pulls a financial knife, Magdalena Andersson tried to bring out a financial gun at today’s press conference.
Question: Is the gun scary enough?
Should the parliamentary investigation look at lotteries, it should also look at the money flows from Swedish Enterprise to various right-wing projects such as think tank Timbro. Swedish state and municipal companies must no longer contribute money to this.
The only question is whether Magdalena Andersson’s gun is terrifying enough? Because when it comes to questions about how much money Svenskt Näringsliv could miss out on, it becomes a question of uncertainty. How much does Timbro really suffer from Andersson’s gun? Unclear. It is perhaps not as threatening as the Social Democrats would like.
A political balance of terror is upset
On the other hand, the anger and disappointment seems to be genuine among social democrats. People talk about how something from Sweden’s history has been lost when the government breaks decades of civil peace. And so it has traditionally been. The bourgeois parties have accepted the Social Democrats’ lotteries, in exchange for receiving the money from business in peace. A political balance of terror.
What has upset this is the rise of the Sweden Democrats as a political power factor. They have no interest in maintaining the old order of things, and have a self-image of being happy to be a subversive factor in Swedish politics. Therefore, the Social Democrats are also trying to squeeze SD. If Jimmie Åkesson sends SSU to the financial hospital, Magdalena Andersson will try to place the entire SD parliamentary office in the financial graveyard.
The requirement there is that the parliamentary investigation should also try to inhibit political parties’ opportunities to funnel local contributions up the organisation. This is how the Sweden Democrats have financed some of the party’s activities at the national level.
But it is very unclear how that would look in practice. And also unclear how worried an SD with two decades of opinion wind in its sails will be. But perhaps the signaling is the most important thing for Magdalena Andersson. If the Tidö parties do this, it will be “The Chicago Way”.
If you fight against our financing, we intend to try to fight against you.