Her top tips for combating rightwing populism? Reframe the debate, obviously. But beyond that, “You have to be accurate, honest, understandable. You have to be serious about what you’re doing, responsible – but at the same time keep it fun, light. That’s not always easy. It’s really hard sometimes, actually. And you have to be positive.”
The breakthrough, though, came that day in February 2016. “It was clear that if we talked about criminal foreigners, we’d become the defenders of criminal foreigners,” says Kleiner. “We’d have lost before we started. “Instead, we set the terms of the debate by portraying the SVP’s proposal as an attack against fundamental Swiss values. Against the constitution as a pillar of our liberal democracy; the rule of law; equal justice for all. We were the patriots here, because this was an attack on things that every Swiss citizen holds dear.”
Politics now, Kleiner believes, has moved far beyond the left-right divide, or even the progressive-conservative divide. “It’s increasingly, actually, about constructive versus destructive,” she says. “That’s really where we are.”