Is it Sylvi Listhaug who has changed, or is it everyone else? – Speech

For many years, Sylvi Listhaug was the closest a politician came to being a swear word in Norway. But look at her now. Without anyone fully realizing what is going on, the FRP has become the country’s largest party by far. Not only does Listhaug speed past Høyre at great speed. The FRP is also larger than the two governing parties Ap and Sp combined in news and Aftenposten’s recent survey. And that under the leadership of a party leader who many have called divisive, populist and worse. As many even questioned whether she was even capable of rallying her own party when she became party leader. How is that possible? Is it Sylvi Listhaug who has changed and become “edible”, or is it everyone else who has changed? Chew on it a little. An empty-handed Messiah All the controversies surrounding the Frp leader are like faint memories of a bygone era when Sylvi Listhaug drove the E6 the straightest way to Lom far north in Gudbrandsdalen. Although her diesel-powered Cadillac is as foreign a bird in the mountain village as the FRP has been until now, Listhaug is received as a kind of Messiah. An empty-handed Messiah, mind you. For Listhaug, he had no concrete promises to make to despairing pupils and teachers who have not given up the fight to save their school. But she had buckets of understanding, explanations and sympathy. In a meeting with the villagers over a cup of coffee, she talked about how important the school was in the local community, and that this school was, after all, cheap in the big picture. And added that it was a long way from Hamar, where the county council elite live, to Lom. There was persistent nodding around the table. She further asked questions about whether the rural people felt they were seen and heard by the politicians. A question it is easy to suspect she knew the answer to. But if Listhaug came to Lom empty-handed, and that the FRP’s free school choice policy alone is hardly the answer for the fringes, they felt seen. Even the SP mayor in the neighboring village thanked her warmly. The old Trygve Slagsvold Vedum would probably nod in recognition of Listhaug’s approach. Sylvi Listhaug drank coffee and talked to the villagers about their despair over the closure of the school in Lom this week. The old Trygve Slagsvold Vedum would probably nod in recognition. Photo: Reidar Gregersen / news Success with complications The FRP’s growth does not come without a solid dose of wormwood for the bourgeois. In Høyre, they have tried to call for stoic calm. With a condescending smile, Erna Solberg has been pleased that Frp’s progress is blue after all. But if the smile doesn’t harden now, it never will. With a condescending smile, Erna Solberg has been pleased that Frp’s progress is blue after all. But if the smile doesn’t harden now, it never will. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB A moment of tension is what this competition triggers in the Conservative Party: The Conservative Party’s recipe for success has been to appear as a slightly more governable and light-blue alternative to the Labor Party. When the voters obviously want more change, what does the Conservative Party do then? Will they try to become a tougher and clearer Conservative Party, which some have probably requested? Or will the Conservative Party end up even more in the shadows when the FRP receives more and more attention and attacks from political opponents? That Sylvi Listhaug takes the driver’s seat on the bourgeois side creates significant complications for the blues. Photo: Reidar Gregersen / news Where the old Left used much of its energy to distance itself from the FRP in general and Sylvi Listhaug in particular, the relationship between the two erstwhile champions is far more pragmatic. But a too strong and self-confident Frp can revive much of the Frp skepticism that still exists in Venstre. For the red-green parties, the Frp growth offers a glimmer of hope. If nothing else, Ap (17.5 per cent in our survey) and Sp (5.4 per cent in our survey) will have their own problems in peace for a while. Sylvi as a scary image It has not been particularly easy to scare with Conservative leader Erna Solberg as a dark blue prime minister who can take the country in the wrong direction. For them, Prime Minister Listhaug probably serves as a better scare image. Or does it actually do that? She has rightly provoked her opponents enormously for many years. Now it is far less common to hear such characteristics of Listhaug. This may of course be due to the fact that the style has been adjusted and that she has become a little less sharp over the years. VG’s commentator has even called her pale and toothless. The mirror is turned Another answer could be that Listhaug’s rhetoric and political solutions do not provoke as much anymore. To take a few examples: Now everyone is talking about Swedish conditions. And no one raised a finger. When Listhaug called for measures against youth crime in 2023, after mass fights and the seizure of a machete at the Norway Cup, it was described by Labor as cheap and divisive. After a summer of youth violence, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spent large parts of his national government speech this autumn on an uncompromising line against crime. He said, among other things, that a machete is something you use in the jungle, not in Oslo. When Listhaug talked about stealth Islamization in 2019, Venstre’s Abid Raja referred to it as “brown propaganda”. Now Raja has written a book in which he claims that the rise of Islam in Europe threatens Western values. Controversial climate positions such as quota purchases from abroad, increased oil activity and opposition to electrification are now appearing both at Aps county annual meetings, in the state budget and in chronicles written by resigned ministers. And that is perhaps a kind of answer to why the FRP is surging forward. The fact that Sylvi Listhaug appears to be a bit milder and rounder at the edges may make it easier for some to vote for her. But Listhaug’s success probably lies primarily in the fact that far more people embrace her politics. Published 20.11.2024, at 05.36 Updated 20.11.2024, at 05.39



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