Back in the 1980s, my left-leaning dad used to joke at the dinner table that if a certain right-leaning President were re-elected, we would be moving to Sweden. In his mind, the country of his forebears was an egalitarian society of hale and hearty outdoor people who lived among nature and cared deeply about the welfare of others. My dad had never actually been to Sweden, but all of his grandparents (and my mom’s) emigrated from the old country and we lived in Minnesota where, every year my grandma almost lit my hair on fire by topping it with a crown of candles for December’s St. Lucia celebration. I also graduated from a Lutheran college named after a Swedish king and spent my summers at our lake cottage sweating in our wood-burning sauna. It’s surprising then that I was 28 years old by the time I was finally able to visit the actual country.
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