---
title: "Left-wing gaslighting | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 352"
titleOriginal: "Vasemmistosumutus | Tere Sammallahti Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 352"
episodeNumber: "352"
guest: "Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila"
datePublished: 2025-09-23
duration: "54:00"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["free_speech_society"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the publisher's own chapter marks, translated one for one; their spacing is irregular and matches the recording. No transcript is published here — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. Both guests are sitting MPs from governing parties and the conversation is openly right-of-centre with no opposing voice, which the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions states."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/708-vasemmistosumutus-tere-sammallahti-onni-rostila-neuvottelija"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/
---
# Left-wing gaslighting | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 352

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=0s) Hiking in Norway, and teaching children to swim
- [01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=60s) A swimming course on a southern holiday against the state doing it
- [01:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=73s) The killing of Charlie Kirk
- [01:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=104s) Jimmy Kimmel's suspension and Trump's cancellation
- [02:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=172s) Gaslighting, sumutus and propaganda in society
- [03:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=233s) Late-night comedians under pressure in the US
- [04:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=260s) Helsingin Sanomat writes about gaslighting too
- [06:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=363s) Luxury accommodation for underage asylum seekers in Tampere
- [08:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=495s) Gaslighting, the film Gaslight, and the Finnish word for it
- [09:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=583s) A poor defence of the Tampere tender from the left
- [11:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=702s) Charlie Kirk against twenty liberals
- [12:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=727s) The media's selective use of controversies
- [15:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=956s) Violence on the left and the right, and attitudes to it
- [18:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1081s) Cancel culture's waves in both directions
- [19:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1198s) The media chooses what you see
- [21:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1301s) Tolerating political violence in workplaces
- [23:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1431s) Atte Korhola reads the left charitably
- [25:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1532s) Acceptance of political violence on the left
- [27:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1663s) On the power to fight, and the nature of politics
- [29:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1763s) The Overton window, and Teemu Keskisarja moving the goalposts
- [31:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=1874s) Attitudes to benefits for foreigners in Europe
- [33:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2002s) Media gaslighting and the inversion of statistics
- [35:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2122s) Citizenship and the problems of foreign nationals
- [37:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2230s) Targeting public services at immigrants
- [39:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2357s) Pushing the solving of problems forward
- [41:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2490s) Health care and paying privately
- [42:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2572s) The difficulty of employing people, and the market economy
- [43:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2593s) The Social Democrats blocked balancing the budget
- [47:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2850s) The illusion of growth and the need to save
- [49:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=2955s) Political promises without savings measures
- [51:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=3067s) The household deduction, and how politicians answer
- [51:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=3084s) The finance minister and analyses of the euro
- [53:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg&t=3193s) The guests: Tere Sammallahti and Onni Rostila

## Summary

The organising concept is sumutus — Onni Rostila's proposed Finnish equivalent of gaslighting — and its separation from ordinary selective framing. The conversation starts from the Charlie Kirk killing and the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and moves to how a media controversy is either harnessed to an agenda or managed down. Its most concrete example is domestic: a reception unit in Tampere whose cost was explained away as the cheapest bid, when the real question concerns how the tender was specified. It also covers cancel culture turning in both directions, where Sammallahti draws the line against his own side, and citizenship-based social security as a question of incentives. Both guests are sitting MPs on the right; nobody puts the opposing case.

## The concept, and why it is worth keeping

Rostila proposes *sumutus* as a Finnish word for gaslighting, and the episode is at its
best where it distinguishes that from ordinary selective framing. The difference matters:
selective framing chooses which true things to report, while gaslighting attacks the
listener's confidence in what they observed.

## The concrete case

The Tampere reception unit is the useful example, because the disagreement is not about
the price. It is about how the tender was specified — which is the shape most public cost
controversies actually take, once the headline figure is set aside.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Vasemmistosumutus | Tere Sammallahti Onni Rostila | Neuvottelija 352](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwt0UAJReg).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/708-vasemmistosumutus-tere-sammallahti-onni-rostila-neuvottelija).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Left-wing gaslighting | Tere Sammallahti, Onni Rostila | Negotiator 352, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep352-vasemmistosumutus-sammallahti-rostila/, 2025-09-23. For quotes include episode 352 and timestamp.