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The author, Paula Neuding explains that the underlying reason for the right-wing sweep is the denial by the government and the media that the country has been experiencing severe problems, despite the fact that citizens can see violence taking place around them and experience it happening to them. The government and media want to avoid accusations of racism. Neuding continues:

Because most bombings never make it to court––evidence is literally blown up, and a strong code of silence marks the Swedish gang scene––it has been difficult to tell the motives behind each attack. But when journalists reviewed legal verdicts in such cases between January 2018 and January 2020— 20 detonations involving 32 perpetrators—they found motives ranging from attempted murder, extortion, and revenge for infidelity. They also noted that not every single explosion is related to the gang scene, although most are.

The bombings have mainly been directed at objects—such as cars and buildings—rather than individuals, which explains why there haven’t been more deaths. Still, fatalities have included a 4-year-old girl who was killed in a car bombing in Gothenburg (2015); an 8-year-old boy who was asleep when a hand grenade was thrown into the apartment where he was staying in Gothenburg (2016); and a 63-year-old man who picked up a hand grenade lying in the street in a Stockholm suburb, thinking that it was a toy (2018). In 2019, a 23-year-old student in the university town of Lund suffered severe facial injuries when she happened to pass by a shop when a bomb exploded in a trash can outside. Her eyesight was reduced to 2 percent. She told the press in an interview that she still does not dare to walk by trash cans.

There are some places to which ice cream trucks and newspaper and postal delivery people cannot safely venture. But far beyond that, firefighters and ambulance crews will not go to those areas without a police escort. Those places are beyond unsafe.

So Sweden is struggling. But what about the U.S.? We have a president who has effectively quashed oil and gas development on federal lands. We have Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) throwing a tantrum at banks that will not stop funding fossil fuels in the name of ESG. We have Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) demanding that everyone in his state switch to electric cars and then telling people not to charge them. Newsom’s delusion has even extended to diesel trucks, which, according to him, are racist.