As we speak, the Christian Democratic Party in Norway are debating whether or not they will overthrow the center right government. The reason for this is the Norwegian minister of justice, Sylvi Listhaug. She has a lot of similarities with Trump.
She has since becoming a minister been an extremely divisive member of government. Especially on immigration and Christianity. She has, like Trump, overtly flirted with righ twing extremists and Nazi organizations. And afterwards denounced them. Like Trump, she has been like teflon. Untouched by stuff that would have run anyone else out of politics.
On March 9th that changed.On the same day as the premiere of the movie about the 22nd July 2011 terroristattack against the Labor Party, where 77 people were killed, she posted aFacebook picture with the text: “The Labor Party thinks the rights of theterrorists are more important than the nations safety”.
This is an extremely divisive, hurtful lie in itself. But the backdrop of the 22nd July movie made the situation unbearable. To give an idea of what a trauma the 22nd July terrorist attack is:
The terrorist was a right wing extremist that had been active in Listhaugs party. He blew up several government buildings, killing 8 people, before heading to the Labor Party Youth Camp at Utøya, where he shot and killed 69 more people. Almost all of them children, and several as young as 14. I understand that this is more extreme for us than it would be in the US, but this is the only mass shooting and terrorist attack that has happened in Norway since WW2. With only 5 million people in our country, there is not a single member of the Labor Party, myself included, that doesn’t know someone that either survived or died at Utøya that day. The terrorist went around a small island and hunted them with a rifle and they had no escape. This is still an open wound in the Labor Party.
So when Sylvi Listhaug posted this, enough was enough. Both the media and the rest of the political Norway found this so extreme that it was not only the Labor Party that reacted.After several weeks, the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg apologized on behalf of the whole government. She leads the coalition government consisting of The Conservative Party (her party), the anti immigrant Progress Party (Listhaugs party) and the immigration friendly Liberal Party. Listhaug was already the most divisive and controversial person in politics.
Listhaug did not want to apologize. She did not want to delete the post either, even though the Prime Minister asked her to do so. She finally deleted it, because it turned out she did not have the right to use the picture. This was probably calculated.
On March 15th Listhaug was scheduled to apologize in Parliament after a deal with the Prime Minister. But,minutes before addressing Parliament, she changed her manuscript from an unconditional apology, to a statement that she was sorry if people were hurt by the timing of her post.
At this point the Labor Party and the rest of the opposition went ape. Enough was enough. With an unconditional apology, it would have been over. But since she needed four tries in Parliament to say she was sorry, and obviously did not mean it, the Labor Party decided to support a motion of no confidence against Listhaug. The rest of the opposition followed suit. And now, today, it is up to the Christian Conservative Party. They have supported the government earlier, but are highly critical of Listhaug, to decide if they will give the motion a majority.
If they do, Prime Minister Erna Solberg must either fire Listhaug, or the entire government will have to step down. She has signalled, that she will not fire Listhaug, so if the motion get's a majority, the government will resign.
I think the reason for this is that Listhaug has managed the same thing as Trump in the GOP primary. The support for Listhaug among the angry right wing of the electorate is so intense, that any politician on the right that challenges her, will lose. And if they don’t they will also lose.
The Christian Conservative Party are meeting right now, deciding how this goes. It is maybe the most dramatic non-wartime (or terrorism) day in Norwegian politics since we fired the Swedish King in 1905. You can’t write this shit…
So I’m just watching the Norwegian version of CNN, waiting for the conclusion.
Tuesday, Mar 20, 2018 · 7:51:04 AM +00:00
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Ectoras
At 8:00 AM Norwegian time, Sylvi Listhaug announced on Facebook that she is resigning from government to end the witch hunt. HAHAHA!!! Good riddance! The air of Oslo is a little less hateful this morning. Free hugs for everyone!