Sweden's Government Won its War with Gangs. Voters Punished Them For It
Simon Whistler · September 22, 2026 · 24 min video · Europe & NATO
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From the transcript
Sweden. For a long time, saying that word, contrary to the images of IKEA, IKEA, ABBA, and social democracy at its finest. People were rich, taxes were high, immigrants were welcome, and the country was just really, really safe.
Barring the odd assassination of a Prime Minister, murder was rare, street crime was minimal, and people trusted their neighbours. But do you know, so we opened that, for a long time. Because the Sweden we described there is no longer the stereotype.
Over the 2010s, Sweden went from being a bastion of safety to one of the most unsafe nations in Europe, gun crimes, which at one point were a rarity, skyrocketed. Grenade attacks became so frequent that they even got their own bloody Wikipedia page, and gangs grew so powerful that wars between them could paralyze towns.
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
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