>>2165652 (pb)

>Why are trips allowed?

The Q clock sounds kind of relevant here…

>Note the jackets.

>Time of year.

The jackets were noted by the Finnish media:

https://www.is.fi/viihde/art-2000005757340.html

It is currently the hottest time of the year in Finland + a remarkable heat wave. Melania must have been uncomfortable.

>Guardian of the Pope.

>[Personal]

It has been reported that Mike Pompeo is going to have a personal meeting with the Finnish Foreign Minister, Timo Soini. Soini is a Catholic convert member of Opus Dei in a Protestant country where there are very few Catholics, the majority of whom come from immigrant origins.

Soini is also very interesting in his utter and total betrayal of his voting base. He used to be an outspoken fiery populist but suddenly became a compliant establishment lapdog.

Let me show you how bad it was:

Right after the latest election:

• The decades-lasting institution of a chairman and principal public face of the second largest party in the parliament.

• Receiver of a large number of personal votes.

(A cavalcade of broken election promises and falling poll numbers goes here.)

Now:

• Non-leadership member in a tiny splinter party from his original party, yet still the Foreign Minister.

• His new party has 1% popularity, no coherent political niche, and is expected to get zero seats in the parliament the next spring.

• Largely quiet, but denounces his old party and voters for racism and populism.

• Will never, ever be elected to the parliament again.

• May or may not have been promised a post as the ambassador to London.

I wonder what happened to Soini (blackmail?) and if Pompeo is going to talk about something other than ordinary foreign policy.

>>2168053

The latest was from a few weeks or so ago and had Soini's new party the Blue Reform (which is called Blue Future in Finnish for some reason) drop to miserable 1.1%, which is less than "the other" category.

Trying to put it concisely, the Social Democrats are currently leading at over 20% with points gained from not being part of the current unpopular government. National Coalition is not far behind and also has a chance to get to form the next government. The reason the Social Democrats aren't doing better is that the chairman has no charisma.

Center, the prime minister's party and the biggest party in the last election, is the third, having dropped by a lot because of unpopular neoliberal non-centrist policies. Then go the Greens and after that the Finns, Soini's old party, which has been showing signs of recovery and is now at over 10% again outside of the government with real anti-immigration populists at the helm.

Summed together, the total popularity of the current solidly right-wing government coalition amounts to scarcely more than a third of the votes. This way the next government will be either much weaker or so entirely left-wing that it has never happened in Finland's history.

>>2168355

I think I'll add for clarity that the current government is Center + National Coalition + Blue Reform. There are many parties in the parliament and I didn't list all of them in the previous post.

If the Social Democrats win and the current government + the Finns is below 50%, the next government could be along the lines of Social Democrats + Left Union + the Greens + filler, which is highly left-wing. The chairman of the Social Democrats has refused to denounce the Finns very much, so it's possible that he could prefer them to Center and National Coalition in forming a majority government, though the liberal pro-immigration Greens could find it hard to accept being in the same government with the anti-immigration Finns.