Nuance is good, sure, but that’s not the same as saying there shouldn’t be models for emulation. Just as stripping a culture of its heroes does not destroy the need of individuals to find heroes, but rather decentralizes and deregulates who those heroes are (and what they might represent), so too with nations.

There is a void in leadership in the international community regarding Western democracies now that the US has effectively abdicated in an… unpleasant manner. Arguably we’ve been unworthy of the unofficial title for a long time now, but maintained the reputation through inertia and a lack of willingness of anyone to challenge us on it. If there is no model, we splinter and find our own models - each of which has a very high chance of being a much more imperfect candidate than Sweden.

So why not Sweden?

It doesn’t require us to ignore Sweden’s faults, no more than Europeans ignored America’s faults even when she was most deserving of the position. It doesn’t require Swedes to stop demanding better of their country - demanding better of one’s country is how you stop yourself from falling into stagnation and… well, what the US is experiencing.

It is only a request to celebrate that democracy and liberty are more than ideals; they can be executed in the real world, and the proof is right there, in a currently functioning society, even if an imperfect one. It is not simply something that the local idealists are saying can happen; it is something that has happened, that is happening, and that is better than oligarchy and serfdom.

And, of course, to bring to bear that reputation in favor of those ideals on the international stage.

If you can somehow get the EU to agree for more than ten seconds, the EU would be a prime contender. But let’s face it, one-country-veto-power kind of fucks that in such a large organization.

If all of that isn’t enough and Swedes are still against it, I vote for Canada instead