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Since 2012, Sweden has been letting ordinary citizens take overthe official @sweden Twitter account, one week at a time, with next to no oversight. Its been risky move intended to help the countrypromote itself, unfiltered, as a travel destination, with each citizen serving as a kind of de facto tourism ambassador.

There have been some verynotable tweetersalong the waythe latest being 22-year-oldMax Karlsson, whos been usingthe account this week to critiquePresident Trump for his comments about Sweden over the weekend.

In case you missed it, Trump, at a rally in Florida on Saturday, said, You look at whats happening last night in Sweden. They took in large numbers. Theyre having problems like they never thought possible.Confusion followed as #lastnightinsweden began trending, with many noting that no specific newsworthy event had occurred in the Scandinavian nation on Friday night.

"As I've said before, we do face challengesbut not the ones Donald Trump believes in."

-Max Karlsson

Trump later saidhe was referring to a segment on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show in which filmmaker and anti-immigration activistAmi Horowitz made allegations about rising crime tied to Swedens refugee settlement policies and referenced alleged no go zones in areas with larger Muslim populations. Research by theSwedish National Council for Crime Prevention shows that violent crime hasbeen in general decline since the 90s, and two of the police officers interviewed by Horowitz for footage thataired during theFox segment later said hemischaracterized their statements, calling him a madman.

Hundreds of social media users began to mockTrump and his supporters with tags like #JeSuisIKEA. And @Sweden joined in, withKarlsson, a 22-year-oldSwedish Union of Tenants negotiation officer, spending much of his week on the account bashing Trump.

AdFreak spoke with Karlsson about the events of the past few days.

AdFreak: How does the @sweden accountwork, exactly? Max Karlsson: You nominate a Swedish Twitter user to Curators of Sweden.Then, if youre chosen by the Swedish Institute, you get a week to tweet freely about any subject, as long as youre within the law and not promoting a product or your business.

Wheredid you hear about Trumps claims, and how did you react? I got ahold of the account Monday morning, but Ive been preparing for about two weeks now. All of the preparation was scrapped, or at least put on hold, when Trump made his remarks, and I started drafting a strategy to be informative but still relevant.I heard about Trumps claims right after he made them, from Swedish journalists on Twitter. The collective response was a huge, Wait what did he just say?

Youve written a lot of tweets debunking Trumps broader allegations. Could you give some context to help Americans understand the arguments about immigration and crime? Were currently having a heated debate about fake news, combined with an increased threat from the Swedish extreme right. The larger political parties are all closing in on more populist policy decisions, and its been quite the ride following the progression from just a few years back. Weve grown much harder in our immigration policies, but a lot of Swedes still maintain a pretty high self-regard based on how it used to be. My week running @sweden is not only targeted toward reaching American Trump votersI want to converse with theSwedes, too.

You mentioned some specific right-wing politicalgroups. Could you elaborate?The Swedish far right has moved several positions forward, with normalization in a lot of the press and amongvoters. These figures, like Fjordman or Ingrid Carlqvist, are relatively invisible in an international context but well-known and generally despised over here. Some publications are maintaining a Snopes-like attitude and keeping their arguments fact-based. I think thats really valuable.

Various outlets are reporting thatriots did occur inthe predominately immigrant neighborhood of Rinkeby on Monday, and some Trump supportershave argued thatthis incident validates his claims. How would you respond?The thing is, it doesnt prove Trump right unless you argue on the premise that these 30 young menin one isolated area with apopulation of 12,000are rioting based on the color of their skin, and that alone. Lets assume they all have citizenship, because most of the youth in that area are born in Sweden to immigrant parents. What makes them immigrant rioters and not Swedish? Does anybody really want a debate about whether or not violence is more inherent in immigrants? Is it passed on through DNA? Thats just how close we are to arguing like its the happy 30s again.

So you think supporters are making a disingenuousargument. A sane discussion on crime is absolutely fitting. Butto be able to further that discussion into policy or action, it has to involve all relevant elements like socioeconomic factors, setting, history and the incident itselfabout which we still know very little. As Ive said before, we do face challengesbut not the ones Donald Trump believes in. Also, they are saying [the rioters were] Muslim, but they mean different race, totally ignoring whether theyre practicing or secular. There are no facts or science supporting this claim, and I hate seeing it in the frontlines of arguments they frequently bring up.

Now that youve had this experience in public, do you plan to become more politically active? This might just be a brief moment for me to express myself on a larger platform, but I havent thought about what to do after this week. Im taking it one day at a time!

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This 22-Year-Old Has Been Trolling Donald Trump All Week via Sweden's Official Twitter Account - PRNewser

Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appear on the porch of the Russian embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1943.Newscom

Imagine this scenario: In a period of protracted economic crisis, the American people elect to the presidency a scion of a wealthy New York family who appeals to the working class and connects with voters through a new form of popular media . Once elected, he cultivates a close relationship with Russia and its strongman leader , belittling long-standing intelligence on a country commonly perceived to be a threat to American democracy. As president, he purges the State Department of trusted advisors and installs as ambassador a Russia apologist who publicly praises the countrys dictator and looks the other way at Russias human rights abuses. Finally, the President turns his back on old European alliances, tacitly supporting Russias military expansion into Eastern Europe and Asia, bringing about a new geopolitical order.

If you think Im talking about Donald Trump , youre off by about 80 years. What Im describing is not the much-discussed bromance between Putin and Trump, but the uncritical friendship that lasted (to the confusion of many Russia experts) throughout the 1930s and early 40s between that great villain of the twentieth century and the man now considered one of its great heroes: Joseph Stalin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Im a novelist, not an historian. But for the last eight years, in doing research for my new novel, The Patriots , set mostly during the Cold War, I have immersed myself in history: reading historical accounts, biographies, and even spending considerable time in the KGBs archives. One of the books I found most helpful was Dennis J. Dunns Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin, a comprehensive study of the five ambassadors to Moscow appointed by FDR. In reading Dunns descriptions of Roosevelts foreign diplomacy, I couldnt help but be struck by the resonance of that period with our own. And while during a time of great anxiety about Americas shifting alliances it may seem provocative to compare the president who assured Americans that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself with the president who has stoked fear with tweets, the ideological and temperamental differences between Roosevelt and Trump should not blind us to the fact that both entered office under similar conditions and both took similarly favorable stances toward Russia. What can we learn from these similarities? And what can they tell us about what lies ahead for the Russia-America relationship?

Roosevelt, like Trump, came to power on a largely domestic agenda. Americans were far less concerned with the future of Europe than with finding work and putting food on the table. Unlike his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, FDR was attuned to this popular sentiment. Some of his closest advisors, like W. Averell Harriman, were shocked at how little Roosevelt seemed to care about the international situation. Writing in his journal, Harriman noted that the President consistently shows very little interest in Eastern European matters except as they affect sentiment in America.

Before Roosevelts election in 1934, the executive branch and Congress had snubbed Russia. Convinced that the new Bolshevik government was eager to undermine the American government through spying and meddling via the Communist International, or Comintern (think of todays hacking scandals), they refused to recognize the Soviet Union and send an ambassador there. This, by the way, did not stop American companies from selling to the Bolsheviks millions of dollars worth of steel and technology for its new factories, and doing so with the tacit approval of the same politicians who lambasted the Red Menace in the press. But it took Roosevelts intervention to turn Americas official policy around.

Russia was eager to encourage such a reversal. It felt isolated by the coalition of anti-Communist states in Europe, and its cash reserves were alarmingly low. To feed its workers, it was starving its peasants. The modern parallel to this is the American and European policy of sanctions, which has hurt Russias economy and caused it to deplete its foreign exchange reserves, which some experts believe might run out by the middle of 2017.

It is no surprise then that Stalin desired the United States as a partner. He cemented the alliance by convincing Roosevelt that Russia was turning Communism into a national project rather than fomenting an international class war. And Stalin pointed to the common enemy of Japan, which had invaded Manchuria on the Soviet border in 1931. (Its worth remembering that it was ultimately an attack by Japan that got America into WWII and on the side of the Russians).

But Russia needed America, with its shipments of steel and low-interest loans, far more than America needed Russia. Prior to Roosevelts presidency, officials in the State Department had insisted on a quid-pro-quo relationship. In return for recognizing the Soviet Union, they wanted Stalin to stop interfering in American affairs through its agents at Comintern, and take a softer stance to the Ukraine, where Stalin had orchestrated a famine. FDR could have easily demanded at least some of these concessions. Why didnt he?

As they say in Russia: Another mans soul is darkness. Its impossible to know exactly what motivated Roosevelt, but its clear that his affinity for Stalin was more than just strategic. It is known from Roosevelts statements that he believed that the Russians and the Americans were on a path to convergence. He believed that as the U.S. was moving away from unfettered capitalism toward state-managed socialism, the Soviet Union was moving from autocratic communism to socialist democracy. Though a member of the elite, FDR was at heart a populist, and he saw in Stalin, a man of the people, a reflection of his own mandate. He was intrigued by Stalins autocratic style and admired him as a man who, to lift up his nation, was not afraid to knock heads.

Russias blunt trajectory appealed to FDR more than the tired alliances of Europe. Just like Trump, Roosevelt had contempt for the old European order. He found the European leaders snooty, clubby, imperialist and entrenched in long-standing intrigues into which they were constantly trying to wrangle America and England. Rather than trusting in the efficacy of quid-pro-quo diplomacy (e.g. sanctions), FDR the populist believed in the power of personality to affect diplomacy. When Russia did not play by the rules (as it usually didnt), Roosevelt preferred not to issue reprimands but to have his ambassador arrange yet another face-to-face meeting between himself and Stalin, presumably so that, like George W. Bush, he could look into the mans eyes and see his soul.

This more than anything frustrated the traditionalists in Roosevelts government the experts, who, like today, demanded a reciprocal, tough and morally objective approach when it comes to Russia. After the war, Harriman, writing in his journal, confessed, I do not believe that I have convinced the president of the importance of a vigilant, firm policy in dealing with the political aspects in various European countries when the problems arise." He was disheartened to realize that Roosevelt didn't care whether the countries bordering Russia became communized.

Recently, Trump hinted that he wouldnt care if NATO fell apart. Roosevelt, the populist, intuitively understood that most Americans didnt care about Europes future. We were too busy worrying about our domestic problems to think about the complicated puzzle of Europe, or to see the big picture: that a unified Europe was a natural check against Russian expansion. Ultimately, it took the next president, Harry Truman, to try to reverse the damage Roosevelt had done. But by then it was too late. With our help, the Cold War had begun.

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Why Populist American Leaders Love Russia - TIME

The New Yorker

How Milo's downfall split the alt-right BBC News Leading figures and activists on the alt-right have split over controversial comments made by one of the movement's champions. Milo Yiannopoulos is a passionate supporter of Donald Trump and rose to fame as an editor at the right-wing website Breitbart. How Alt-Right Fellow-Traveller Milo Yiannopoulos Cracked Up the RightThe New Yorker Alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos resigns from Breitbart NewsThe Week Magazine Milo: The Rise and Fall of the Alt-right Darling and 'Brave, Conservative Standard-bearer'Haaretz Right Wing Watch -Media Matters for America (blog) -Facebook -Facebook all 1,149 news articles »

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How Milo's downfall split the alt-right - BBC News

Heres a fact for the media to chew on: The deep state is here. As outlined in Foreign Policy, the concept of the deep state is nothing new. But the Trump presidency may serve as the galvanizing force that links some of the formal established Democratic opposition forces, including MoveOn.org, government unions and Black Lives Matter with the informal deep-state cadre of disgruntled liberal bureaucrats, the hostile mainstream media and the usual suspects on the left. Its a troubling phenomenon, with anti-Trump organizations and Democratic-aligned civil servants conspiring to actively work against the incumbent government.

There might not be any central command guiding the deep-state actions, but its not hard for card-carrying Democratic party members, the mainstream media, liberal think tanks, government unions and other anti-Republican liberals of various stripes to naturally form into a collective grain that runs contrary to whatever elected Republicans in Congress and now in the White House want to accomplish.Its just like when a school of fish move in unison, choreographed not because of some planned effort, but because it is in their nature. The bias against President Trump has become frantic, and the Democrats and their allies in the media overreach almost daily in attacking the president and Republicans in general.

Deep state is a sexy new label being used in Washington to describe embedded anonymous bureaucratic bias against President Trump and Republican rule. Specifically, the deep state is leaking documents, making confidential conversations public, pushing rogue social media accounts and otherwise acting in an underhanded manner to discredit the president, his Cabinet and the policy objectives of the Republicans. The use of encrypted chat programs to communicate and the continued leaks to various media outlets are just the start.Their tactics are beginning to spread to other Democratic sympathizers and form a continuous partisan assault both from within the government and from outside groups.

At some level, this shouldnt be surprising. The 2016 election was so vitriolic, and the Democrats belief that Hillary Clinton would be the next president was so strong, that their defeat carried extra weight. Members of the Democratic coalition are already firmly entrenched within the federal government and among the surrounding intelligentsia. They have the ability to feed their supporters information, giving the activists more reason to protest, which in turn conflates the liberal hype around the actions of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. Its a vicious cycle.

At the same time all this is going on, the left has taken to painting Republicans with a broad brush as the alt-right. Well, as best I can tell, the alt-right is just a new way for the left to call Republicans racists and Nazis without actually having to say those terms out loud. To me, the deep state is real. The alt-right is not. The deep state may not be fully developed quite yet, but as the Democrats regain their footing and begin to coordinate and try to further and further damage the presidents credibility, it will have a detrimental impact on how our democracy functions and will further erode the publics trust in government.

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The 'deep state' is real. The 'alt right' is fake. - Washington Post (blog)

Comparing the language of Breitbart commenters to the language of the most aggressive far-right extremists online e.g. language used by Twitter users who advocate for violence against minorities and are openly pro-Nazi we can see a clear trend of increasing similarity over a three-year period, the bulk of it under Bannon. Bannon left Breitbart to join the Trump campaign in mid-August 2016 but the editorial focus of the site stayed the course he set it on.

Diving deeper into anti-Semitic sentiment we see a similar trajectory. In early 2013, the term Jewish was used in a similar way as white or black as a racial/ethnic descriptor, which is similar to how "Jewish" is used in the mainstream press. By 2016 on Breitbart, however, Jewish had morphed into an epithet, used in similar contexts as socialist or commie.

In a mainstream newspaper article, the word Jewish is statistically similar to words such as Muslim and Christian. This means that mainstream commentators usually rely on the word Jewish to describe someone or something religious. This was the case for Breitbart comments back in July 2013.

For far-right wing extremists, the word Jewish is used in a totally different context. Instead, its use is statistically similar to words such ascommunist, homosexual, anti-white, and satanic. Within Breitbart's comment section, "Jewish" was increasingly used in contexts similar to "commie" and "socialist" or even "progressive."

After Bannon was appointed as chief strategist, his record as a far-right propagandist came under increased scrutiny. Most contested by Bannon and his defenders was his August 2016 comments to a Mother Jones journalist that Breitbart became the platform for the alt-right.

Trump in an interview with the New York Times argued that Breitbart News was just a publication. Breitbart also went on the offensive. On November 19, Breitbart published Steve Bannon: Zero Tolerance for Anti-Semitic, Racist Elements of the Alt-Right.

In the article, Bannon was summarized as saying:

Bannon also highlighted the diversity of views that were given a platform at Breitbart News, while also making it clear that both he and the site had zero tolerance for racial and anti-Semitic views.

Given the comment section analysis, however, it would appear Bannon and Breitbarts tolerance for anti-Semitic views was higher than zero. It confirms what Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, said when he claimed that Bannon turned the comment section into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers.

On this point, Breitbart editors have repeatedly attacked critics who connect the website to the anti-Semitic elements of the alt-right by pointing to Jewish writers on staff and their editorial embrace of far-right Israeli politics. It is Breitbarts other coverage, however, that is most likely attracting these elements to the site.

A focus on globalist elites, traditionally an anti-Semitic dog whistle used by the radical right and a core appeal embraced by right-wing populists both in the US and in Europe today, was a rolling narrative covered extensively by Breitbart. One Breitbart London piece attacked Washington Post writer Anne Applebaum by calling her a Polish, Jewish, American elitist with global media contacts is the best example, which was roundly criticized as being anti-Semitic. Similarly, Breitbarts undeniably inflammatory coverage of the migrant crisis and terrorism resonates with the hard right, which includes anti-Semitic fellow travelers.

Bannon, however, in an interview with POLITICO after the first wave of criticism started to die down in late December, again embraced Breitbarts readership. As POLITICO reported, Bannon said the best things about Breitbart are the comments section and the callers.

It was always great to hear what the hobbits had to say because at the end of the day, what they had to say was what mattered most. This whole movement, its really the top of the first inning.

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Breitbart Under Bannon: Breitbart's Comment Section Reflects Alt-Right, Anti-Semitic Language - Southern Poverty Law Center