Former US President Barack Obama broke with historical precedent this weekend by stepping out of the shadow to attack his successor, Donald Trump. Such is the worry among socially-minded democrats that liberal democracy is under threat.
Former US President Barack Obama speaks at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Illinois, US, September 7, 2018. /Reuters Photo
Those same people should keep an eye on events in Sweden this weekend.
While in the White House, Obama reportedly once asked rhetorically: "Why can't all countries be like the Nordic countries?" Among them, Sweden has for decades been the prime example of the social democratic model.
US President Barack Obama walks with, from left, Iceland's Prime Ministers Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, Finland's President Sauli Niinisto, Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Norway's Prime Ministers Erna Solberg (partly obscured) and Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven at the White House, Washington DC, US, May 13, 2016. /VCG Photo
If that model is failing in Sweden, some might argue, it is a failing model. Full stop.
The far right Sweden Democrats believe it is. They head into parliamentary elections this weekend with the polls too close to call.
The party leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, speaks at a campaign meeting in Malmo, Sweden, September 8, 2018. /VCG Photo
They are up against incumbents in the center left Social Democrats who have been Sweden's largest political party for more than a century. For decades, every government has accepted some basic principles of "the Swedish model," including the idea that all humans are equal and there is strength in diversity.
The Sweden Democrats make no secret they want to abandon these norms, which they say led to the country taking in too many refugees at the height of the migrant crisis. Their candidates blame that influx for issues across the board: heightened segregation, longer hospital queues, and lowering school standards.
The party leader in the country's southern Skane province is Patrik Jonsson. He is one of a new generation of far right politicians across Europe who no longer define their politics by claims of racial superiority, but cultural. Experts call it a shift from "ethno-nationalism" to "cultural nationalism."
Sweden Democratic Party's Patrik Jonsson: "I do not accept any form of multiculturalism." /CGTN Photo
"I do not accept any form of multiculturalism," he told CGTN on Friday. "I want things to go back to how they were."
In Jonsson's Sweden, not everyone would be treated equally: "You don't rape because you're poor, it's a cultural question: how you see young girls. You force girls to wear burqas for example. I have a daughter, she's 21. It scares me very much, this kind of difference between boys and girls."
Taboos have been shattered on the campaign trail, as even mainstream parties begin to accept that the "Swedish model" is in trouble.
Sweden's decision on Sunday is about whether to try and fix it or to give up on it entirely and choose a very different path.
(Cover: An election official casts a voter's ballot at a polling station during the Swedish general elections in Stockholm, Sweden, September 9, 2018. /VCG Photo)