We need the return of boring politics to prevent book burners from gaining a grip on power

For a large segment of the kind of people who like to call themselves “progressives,” fascism is just one voting booth away from taking control and plunging us into some kind of far-right dystopia.

They tend to rely on hyperbole and hysteria, which means they don’t really affect anyone outside of their base — but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be vigilant about what we can probably call the rise of the idiots.

We saw a perfect example of this in Sweden over the weekend, when a series of riots broke out after it was revealed that a Swedish-Danish politician was planning to burn Koran boxes in public.

The provocateur behind the stunt, Rasmus Paludan, has form for this type of behavior – he has previously served a prison sentence for incitement to racial hatred – and despite receiving just 1.8 per cent of the vote in the Danish election, he clearly counts on it Burning sacred books is a good way to attract attention.

Well, he certainly got the attention he so desperately wanted. Swedish police officers had to fire warning shots at the rampaging activists, 40 people were arrested and dozens more were injured in what national police chief Anders Thornberg described as the “most violent riots” he had ever seen in Sweden.

Like other agitators before him, Paludan appears to be a bit of a gambler. After much singing and dancing about his merry book-burning plan, he then refused to show up for any of the planned events, claiming he was too afraid for his safety and citing his lack of confidence in the Swedish police’s ability to assert themselves security.

He may well have been right, and the scenes of rampant violence and destruction certainly support his theory.

But at the risk of sounding dated, can we all at least agree that book burning is a very bad thing?

Honestly, only crazy people burn books. And as we’ve seen throughout history, once you start burning books, it doesn’t take too long to start burning people.

I’m not a fan of radical Islam or radicalism in general and if I had a euro for every time someone complains that I’m Islamophobic I could probably retire.

But even I am reluctant to set fire to a book that more than a billion people consider to be the divine Word of God.

The ploy achieved its goal, which was to further separate the local Swedish population from the Muslim immigrant community. It was mean and cynical, and it’s probably no surprise that numerous Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq have summoned their Swedish ambassadors to express their dislike.

It’s a rare day when we in the West can see where these countries are coming from and the sensible decision would have been to just ignore the whole micro-scandal, but we don’t live in a sensible society, not anymore.

Instead, we all seem to be consumed by a strange form of irrational anger. On the one hand extremists burn books and on the other hand extremists burn cars, loot buildings and attack the police.

But if we accept that we can confidently label Paludan as “far right”, the same label can really be applied Marine LePen?

The controversial French politician is running against Emmanuel Macron in the final runoff for France’s presidential election this Sunday, and virtually every report has denounced her as a fascist in disguise.

That’s because she’s been a vocal opponent of Islamic immigration, but the reason she’s been so much more successful in this year’s campaign than in her previous efforts is because she’s scaled down that form of rhetoric.

But just when it looked like she might make a viable election candidate, she started playing the old hits again – proposing a headscarf ban for Muslim women with heavy fines for those who choose to, and the possible reintroduction of the Death penalty .

This is where those of us who consider ourselves centre-right or just old-school liberals begin to despair.

But the whiff of sulfur and the lure of extremes seem like catnip to many politicians on both sides of the political divide.

It’s not just Europe, although from an Irish perspective we can at least be relieved that we tend to oppose most forms of political extremism. But as we have seen in America, it is starting to appear that many of their politicians are simply deranged.

Perhaps the most obvious example is the ridiculous Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has spouted endless conspiracy theories, has called for the execution of certain FBI agents, and on top of that has dismissed the simple fact of evolution because “I only believe in God.”

But she’s not alone, and it’s interesting to note that many of the more extreme Democrats also like a good conspiracy theory.

It’s tempting to dismiss Paludan as irrelevant, but he has a growing following. Le Pen probably managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because she can’t resist her racist instincts, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who should have no place in sane political discourse, is hailed as a heroine of the white race.

Honestly, let’s make politics boring again, because the ideologues are starting to take center stage and that should concern us all – regardless of your political affiliation…