Considering the rise of Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark (sort-of a "nicer/cleaner" version of Sweden Democrats), and the very low quality level of the current Danish political debate, I'm not sure the Danish approach is doing much to defuse right-wing populism through letting people air their grievances. They can, but they just they do that in addition to voting for populist-right parties, not instead of. In any case it seems to be a much broader phenomenon than the political discourse norms of any one country. Right-populist politics, in the various local flavors offered by DF/SD/Trump/Szydło, are gaining across many countries despite quite a few differences in those countries.

You need to understand the context here.

Dansk Folkeparti (Danish Peoples Party) arose because of the established primarily left leaning political parties completely ignored and froze out the party to begin with.

The biggest political party, the Social Democrats (also likes to call itself the workers party) lost touch with it's voters when society in general went from production sectors to service sectors. A rising unrest about immigration manifested itself in a lot of voters who didn't benefit from the immigrants coming and taking jobs or just living of welfare that many danish voters felt they paid for (Denmark have extreme taxes)

And so while the political establishment tried to ignore them they slowly grew to become now the second biggest political party in Denmark. However now for other reasons than muslim immigration. The reason now is that DF is the only party that really takes the average joes concerns seriously no matter how primitive they might seem to many.

Today most parties are in line with DF as they have recognized that you can't just take in a lot of people and then expect them to become a natural part of society.

Denmark has one of the most honest debates about immigration and it speaks volume about the level of political corectness and control over the media in other countries that even though Denmark is one of the countries who take most immigrants and refugees, spend most money on immigration both domestically and internationally and has some of the most extensive rights for immigrants it still had to defend it's political line in the EU.

Denmark is fairly clear on what it's doing. There are many bad things I can say about my home country but I actually think that debate wise we have some of the most free and civilized debates especially considering the hot topics we often discuss.

I think right wing populists benefit a lot from the general feeling that the established parties and the media refuse to even admit that there might be a problem caused by mass immigration.

Contrary to _dilerium's answer, I think this, in at least Sweden, was a quite significant factor. But that must(?) have changed now. During the last wave of immigrants coming to Sweden, the whole range of parties, except for the Left Party, made a 180 degree turn and agreed with the Sweden Democrats narrative. Even the Social democrats are now saying that Sweden is under a social and economic collapse due to immigration which was lauded by the Swedish Democrats.

See for example [0] (Swedish) and links within.

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/internationella-medier-sver...

I'm skeptical that's a significant factor, because right-populists seem to be gaining even in countries, like Denmark and the USA, which have a large portion of mainstream media and politicians hostile to mass immigration. In that case, immigration opponents can't claim that nobody takes their concerns seriously, or that you're not allowed to criticize mass immigration, because many mainstream outlets and figures are doing so. But the media support seems to if anything just help their cause: years of Fox News harshly criticizing illegal immigration from Mexico feeds well into Trump's strategy of doing the same thing, but with the rhetoric amped up a few notches.

> I'm skeptical that's a significant factor, because right-populists seem to be gaining even in countries, like Denmark and the USA, which have a large portion of mainstream media and politicians hostile to mass immigration.

The populist complaint against rightist politicians in the United States is that they claim to oppose illegal immigration, but that's actually just a scam to fool the rubes into voting for them. When push comes to shove, they quietly endorse the current (Democratic) administration's policies on the matter and make sure that efforts to block them always fail. Given that, the factors behind Trump's support aren't so different from the factors behind support for populists in Europe.

Right wing isn't gaining in Denmark. Not sure where you have that from.

DF is gaining because ordinary people are seeing their jobs being outsourced or underbid by eastern european citizens. In fact this is today the primary reason for why parties like DF gets more and more power. They are the only parties who actually takes peoples concern seriously. There is a much much bigger fraction of the western society who do not stand to benefit from technological progress, multicultural society and globalized workforce.

If anything what is happening right now is a national conservative trend where people who aren't benefitting will vote on the parties that are sceptic to progress.

I agree with that. Fears about globalization's effects on the working class / blue-collar middle class, which in Western Europe post-WW2 had a reasonably good and stable economic position, but is now becoming much more precarious, are a big economic driving force behind the right-populist parties. I think that's a much bigger effect than any worries about the media or political correctness.

> In some neighbouring countries it has been mostly put down by left wing "moderators" under the seemingly well intended excuse of not wanting to cause stigma

And still, conservatives and racists are routinely headlining most popular medias and public debates. They don't have any problem to express their point of view.

What is rightfully "put down" is incitement to ethnic or racial hatred (which is also illegal in most Europe countries).

> in large parts of the general public.

I assume what you call "large part of the general public" are the usual 20% that vote for far right parties.

Most parties with few exceptions share 90% of Dansk Folkepartis immigration policy. Even under the previous center-left government most shared this view. They disagree on some very important areas but all the stuff you read about in the newspapers (much of it planted by danish politicians not in agreement) there is political consensus about.

But go back 20 years in Denmark or just a couple of years in Sweden and you will see a different pictures. They were the parias of society.

Despite the huge success Sveriges Demokraterne had at last election the other parties decided to completely ignore them and to keep them out of power.

Swedish police has not been allowed to put ethnicity into reports even when it was relevant.

Sweden (and Germany) invited immigrants and fugitives to just come. Now Sweden sobered by reality closed it's borders to Denmark because they can't have anymore.

I am not a big proponent of DF and personally I am an "open borders, but no money" kind of person. This is one of the things I believe works really well here in the US.

But they were wrong about it becoming an issue. Especially since Denmark have so lucrative social benefits as they do (which the fugitives and immigrants go after and I don't blame them)

But this is a much more complicated discussion than just right wing racist parties vs. the good people on the left.

The discussion in Europe right now really is about how the EU makes sure that it balances it's international obligations with it's obligations over it's citizens.

> What is rightfully "put down" is incitement to ethnic or racial hatred (which is also illegal in most Europe countries).

In my opinion, this is not the case. Even criticism based on reason and facts with legitimate concerns tend to get flogged for being racist and hate speech. The climate seems to be changing now, though, with major news corps and public figures starting to express more concern than they ever have (also claiming they always have been critical, so it's quite pathetic in my view).

> I assume what you call "large part of the general public" are the usual 20% that vote for far right parties.

I may have a clouded memory, but I don't think 20% voting far right is anywhere near usual when speaking of Scandinavia in a historical context.

Also, even what's considered to be right wing politics in Scandinavia has traditionally been quite socialist.

>And still, conservatives and racists are routinely headlining most popular medias and public debates. They don't have any problem to express their point of view.

I think the argumentative tactic is to claim that you are leftist/cultural-marxist/whatever who is "being silent about problems" if you don't portray the issues exactly the same way as they are doing. It works because in the beginning the left did not want to talk about the problems.

Yeah, it seems that immigrants are either the source of all evil or saints. Without any meaningful middleground it will only get more extreme.

(I am not from a neighbouring country but not that far away)

I'd call that the 'Double Schrödinger's Immigrant':

- takes away our jobs, while simultaneously leeching off of our taxpayers' money

AND

- helps us solve our demographic problem / labor shortage, while simultaneously moving back to his home country as soon as peace is restored there

Interestingly, the first possibility isn't self-contradictory. If you agree to work for a very low salary, you'll bid down the wages for everyone else and require public assistance to stay afloat. From what I've heard, it's happening with Walmart workers in the US.