My sosse-zen disappears with the refugee policy
Holiday. You lie down in the hammock, drowsy and listless. The books you bought in an optimistic number before the holidays lie unread on the bedside table. The “evening spill” creeps earlier and earlier into the afternoon. It’s hard to relax.
To you I say: do not despair! Perhaps you are the target group for the latest venture of the communications strategists at Sossarna. Recently, the party released the podcast “Relax with Peter Hultqvist” on Spotify. The AI-generated cover image shows Hultqvist in a hammock by a red cabin with white knots. The content consists of the defense policy spokesperson with his sweet valley goal simply reading out 531 of the party’s proposals.
I can report that the podcast works more than excellently for its purpose. When the former minister reads out proposals like “105: A broad take back control inquiry into welfare” my relaxation reaches almost Tibetan levels. The initiative also feels refreshing, to say the least, in an election campaign (two months to go, take care of me) that has so far been characterized by anything but substantive politics, where the media and the parties themselves seem to be competing to see who can pump out the dumbest content.
On TikTok, for example, you can see the Moderates pretending to ask ChatGPT if you will be able to play GTA 6 if the sossas win the election (the answer is no, because of tax increases, instead you should vote for “the man with the big calves”). In SVT’s “Prejudice show” asks Emil Persson out Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist (C) about her morning sex. However, the interest club’s wettest dream is represented by this newspaper in a series where the party leaders get to show off what they have in their bags. “Curious in a cone”, comments the prime minister to the reporter with a smile, and when he gets to flex his iPad Pro with privacy protection, you can see how he really enjoys it.
So it has been, to say the least, poor for all of us who had voted for a phone booth if it had good enough reform proposals – until now, that is, when we got “Relax with Peter Hultqvist”. To the chancellor who came up with this, I want to say a big thank you in the name of democracy, I think.
… But then I keep listening, and my sossezen slowly starts to drain from me.
Certain question marks begin to form when Hultqvist comes up with proposals such as “expanding the possibilities of using technical tools to access people with connections to gangs and the mafia, camera surveillance with facial recognition, secret data reading and AI-based tools”.
What “connections”? What “AI-based tools”?
Other suggestions that I think are a bit, well, weird to relax into are that “asylum seekers who have had their application rejected should live in state return centers while waiting to return” or that “Sweden should have rules for asylum and family immigration that are in line with the minimum levels in the rest of Europe”. What this minimum level looks like in practice, we have seen with painful clarity over the past year, with headline after headline about inhumane deportations and lives shattered.
Something in the relaxation setting – Hultqvist’s calm Norrland, the image of him in the hammock – rubs. At the same time, it speaks volumes for the party’s self-image. The Sossas know very well that their proposal will not get the blood of the great masses to swell. They know they will not mobilize, inspire or create debate. However, it doesn’t matter, because that is not the goal of the proposals. The goal, and the path to winning the election, is lowered cortisol levels. And who doesn’t want that?
I want it anyway. After all, maybe it’s just me if I can’t fully relax when I listen to “Relax with Peter Hultqvist”. All I have to do is dare to give in and let go… Let myself be lulled by Hultqvist’s siren song into a vegetative state (nirvana)… Filled with the feeling that they with their 531 congressional proposals have it figured out after all… That everything can be back to normal… If we just relax and surrender…
