It's the Fourth of July, and we hope you're celebrating. Scouring X, we're finding a lot of people who just can't enjoy America's 250th birthday. (Hollaria Briden asked for a wellness check on Bluesky … the mood is pretty dour over there in that liberal utopia.)
New York Times columnist Nicholas "Rape Dogs" Kristof reports that America is marking its 250th anniversary "with misgivings and malaise" and longs for the United States to follow the Nordic model going forward for the next 250 years. That sounds kind of white supremacist to us, going to Scandinavia and wishing America were more like it. The most recent achievement we've heard from the Nordic model is the elimination of Down Syndrome through eugenics. What else does it have going on?
As America marks its 250th with misgivings and malaise, how about if we seek inspiration from the Nordic model going forward? I traveled to Scandinavia to understand how these countries achieve prosperity and a high degree of equality -- while also becoming the happiest places on…
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) July 4, 2026
The post continues:
… Earth.
As Norway's finance minister, @jensstoltenberg, told me: “We actually live the American dream....The American dream, it’s more reality in the Nordic countries than in America.”
They do have real challenges, and it's not entirely clear that the Nordic model is fully sustainable, let alone replicable. And we're not going to adopt it wholesale. But the US was actually on a similar track in the 1950s and 1960s, so it's not exactly alien. And I argue that in the Nordic model there is much to admire and learn from — and adopt. Here's a gift link, and I welcome your thoughts:
Recommended
An Independence Day gift, for us? Gee, thanks.
Skeptics have argued that generous welfare benefits and the resulting high taxes have held back the Nordic economies. Perhaps a bit. “Farewell, Nordic model,” The Economist wrote in 2006. But Norway is now richer than the United States per capita, and Norwegian workers are more productive than American workers, with higher output per hour. Scandinavians live longer than Americans, and people are happier. The five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — all rank among the six happiest countries in the world in the World Happiness Report, based on Gallup polling.
Yet the Nordic countries are themselves facing significant challenges, including fiscal pressures, immigration, widening inequality and perhaps some breakdown in the social consensus. Some doubt whether the model can survive here, let alone be exported to countries that are larger, less homogeneous and more suspicious of taxation.
Yes, you could say the United States is less homogeneous than Scandinavia, what with the Biden administration importing tens of millions of illegal immigrants over his four years in office.
Kristof welcomes your thoughts:
Shut up
— Max 📟 (@MaxNordau) July 4, 2026
Oh go to hell.
— Will Collier (@willcollier) July 4, 2026
Only America-hating idiots like you are marking the 250th with misgivings and malaise.
— Lady L. North 💙❤️🏀 🏈 (@LadyLNorth) July 4, 2026
Nicholas:
— Victor Clairmont (@ClairmontVII) July 4, 2026
You can always leave this country and renounce your citizenship.
Sincerely,
Everyone who thinks you are stupid.
Happy 250th everyone else.
Yeah, Euro socialism protected by American taxpayers paying for their defense.
— Dan Gainor (@dangainor) July 4, 2026
How many destitute migrants did Norway allow to stay in their country indefinitely over the last decade?
— Eddie Scarry (@eScarry) July 4, 2026
First, their populations are very high trust. Ours is not, has been getting less so, and you seem to be a big fan of lots of immigration from some of the lowest trust societies on Earth.
— Edward Girard (@efagirard) July 4, 2026
Hello from Denmark. We are entirely dependent on US technology and defense services.
— Not Gladys or Phyllis (@ThoughtMiss) July 4, 2026
Did your extensive research consider the comparatively low number of illegal citizens in Nordic countries and that they don’t receive the significant tax payer funded benefits that illegals receive in the U.S.?
— Robert D. Miranda (@bmiranda24) July 4, 2026
The Nordic model worked when the population was a high-trust, high-IQ Scandinavian people. It cannot work with a third-world population.
— Jean (@jean_tavare45) July 4, 2026
“We should take inspiration from the small, racially homogeneous country with very strict immigration laws and a $1,000,000,000,000 sovereign wealth fund that exists because of massive oil reserves.”
— The Iron Yuppie (@Iron_Yuppie) July 4, 2026
Welcome to the Alt Right, Nick.
There's only malaise if you're choosing to be a miserable rotten fuck. Everyone else is going to BBQ and light off explosives today. Even Seattle is having a massive firework show you cry baby bitch.
— Kyle (@KylePostingOnX) July 4, 2026
There are no misgivings and no malaise. God bless America.
— Keith Siegel (@KeithASiegel) July 4, 2026
This has been debated and debunked ad nauseum. Move to fucking Norway and stop being a bitch about the privileged life you have had living in the US
— Banjo Picker (@Rtonkins74) July 4, 2026
Americans aren't marking the 250th with misgivings and malaise. Commies are.
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