The Politics of Care & Four Key Issues
How do we care about our society, build a resilient economy, and protect public goods without falling into bitterness, cynicism, or exhaustion?
Lessons from Teenage Activism
When I was fourteen years old, I joined political youth organizations. I handed out flyers in freezing weather, attended heated local council meetings, and spent nights debating policy. I cared deeply about protecting our forests, stopping climate destruction, and working for a world without wars and violent conflicts.
By the time I was twenty, that passion had burned me out. I spent so much energy arguing with opponents and defending positions that I stopped listening. I treated anyone with a different perspective as an adversary to defeat rather than a human being with their own life experiences and genuine anxieties.
Burnout taught me an enduring lesson: when political engagement is fueled solely by outrage, it drains your health, clouds your judgment, and isolates you from your community. Durable politics requires patient, constructive focus on real structural issues.
Four Key Policy Issues
Practical, evidence-based approaches to sustainable societal development and public welfare.
Evidence-Based Migration Politics
Building a less polarized society with fewer conflicts requires a sustainable migration policy with clear, predictable rules for both society and migrants. We need a transparent, point-based, evidence-based system that balances humanitarian responsibility, labor market realities, and long-term integration capacity without cultural alienation.
AI, Media & Education Reform
Digital media and generative AI are transforming how we think, learn, and inform ourselves. We need education reform to reverse declining PISA results and rebuild deep reading skills in students. We also need stricter regulation on AI models and aggregators: platforms should not be permitted to scrape data without compensation. Big tech aggregators must pay journalistic sources for their work. The goal is to provide resources and protection for independent, slow journalism (such as De Correspondent) rather than optimizing for sensationalist, click-driven outrage.
Environment, Climate & Public Investment
The climate transition cannot simply rely on punitive fuel taxes that disproportionately harm working people and regional communities. We must support local industries, agriculture, and rapid electrification while expanding both renewable energy and stable nuclear power. National legislation that blindly shutters domestic industry merely exports emissions and jobs abroad, failing to lower global emissions. We need massive public investment in infrastructure, rail transport, and grids. It is time to end railway deregulation, properly regulate the energy market, and recognize transportation and energy as vital public goods managed in the public interest.
Banking & Finance Reform
We must drive productive domestic and EU investment while preserving the sovereign ability of each member country to set its own monetary and financial policy. The EU should focus on harmonizing the internal market while letting nations manage their own economic interests. In Sweden, major commercial banks generate exorbitant profits on mortgage interest margins while consumers have virtually no leverage to negotiate, and regulators like the Riksbank and SBAB lack sufficient teeth. We must provide accessible, long-term pathways to home ownership so people are not trapped in precarious renting or at the mercy of private banking cartels. Too much societal talent is absorbed into financial extraction rather than productive innovation.