Sweden's Trump Moment

A Maggie's Farm link to an unusually cogent analysis of Trump's appeal (in the Guardian, no less) led me to the site Unherd.com, where I read some more of the author's work.  He has put some effort into understanding political trends all over Europe as well as the U.S., and has this to say about Sweden's version of the "bitter clinger" and "deplorable" remarks that so alienating American voters from the Democratic Party:

At the core of it, shifting Swedish politics is simple, and has little to do with either deindustrialisation, racist deplorables or bitter clingers – however emotionally appealing it is for progressives to blame these factors. Sweden’s highly generous refugee policy never had majority support among voters, including Social Democratic voters. Blue-collar voters who dared to express even mild protest were bullied and branded as hateful or ignorant by their own party. The only outlet for that built-up resentment has been the Sweden Democrats, and while in the run up to the election the Social Democrats have moved sharply to the Right on migration and crime issues, the mistakes of the past years may prove difficult to repair for this once invincible party.

It's a dangerous thing for political and social movements to let resentment build up.  Protests that aren't heard become more shrill and polarized.  Progressives instinctively understand this when the protesters are women or LGBTQs, but seem to lose their good sense when the protesters are anyone outside their own charmed circle.  It's a short step from "I can't be heard" to "this game is rigged" to "I'll support anyone who will shake this crummy system up."  There's a good reason the First Amendment was first.