Ahead of the European election, striking data shows where Gen Z and millennials’ allegiances lie.
Far-right parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.
Many parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.
In Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young people’s political preferences suggest.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the 2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters. In Portugal, too, the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns.
The analysis also points to a split: While young women often reported support for the Greens and other left-leaning parties, anti-migration parties did particularly well among young men. (Though there are some exceptions. See France, below, for example.)
This is so frustrating to watch as an American. I spent much of my youth on the internet getting clowned on by Europeans for the consequences of my country’s hard right policies. The UK has been deservedly getting clowned on for the consequences of embracing the Tories. It beggars belief that the same people clowning on the US and UK would then turn around and say to themselves “yes, but it will be different for us, it will work for us, our situation really is different, you don’t understand”. No, it won’t be different. Pretty soon, you’re going to be following the path that the Tories set the UK on, marvelling at how dysfunctional your government is, and hearing about how the only solution is even more gibs to the people who are already the most economically advantaged and the private sector. Before you click reply, just consider that you guys deserve to get fucking dunked on, because you guys spent decades laughing at other countries for doing this shit just to say “hmmm… but what if sticking the fork in the electrical socket works out for me?” I’m honestly sad and disappointed for Europe, not least of all because after years of deservedly shitting on the US for being racist, all it took was one big wave of immigration for you guys to hold up blonde dumbasses with bad hair and worse ideas as the solution to all of your problems.
“Oh, great bozo of the European trailer park, what is your wisdom to save our culture from the immigrants?”
“Deregulate sewage plants. You will certainly not regret deregulating sewage plants.”
Enjoy your US-style healthcare system in a few years, I guess.
I’m not surprised by the male/female gap. The past decade, young men have been told that white men are the worst thing to be. The left has not provided any role models for young men.
The right has many.
As a white dude I sometimes think our suicide rate is a good thing. The left will never reach out and the other side are fascists. White men is what people think of in the alt right, they own us no mater how we vote.
Odd take
How else would you describe it? because part of the problem is that it is absolutely true that white men gave us Trump so hatred to us is kind of justified. Hell, i grew up in a hick town and I have seen how hopeless it is for change in those groups its almost inherent. And all though they are way more reasonable then conservatives liberals still want to ignore that women and minorities vote republican too, in fact two of the most talked about GOP candidates in the primary was a woman and the son of an Indian immigrant. which is a problem, but its still nothing compared to the views of most republicans who think school shootings happen because some dude in a dress read a book to some kids. So yeah, suicide is easier.
Don’t you view some trouble in writing out
white men gave us Trump so hatred to us is kind of justified
Followed by
liberals still want to ignore that women and minorities vote republican too
So yeah, suicide is easier.
Clearly it’s not going to change the outcome, just those who get to play
I am talking about numbers though. If white men did not vote we would never see another GOP president. Becuase yeah women and minorities vote for them too, but its still a vast majority of white men.
You would have non-white conservatives running the GOP
Like those two you just mentioned
Substitute the token minority that they target for someone else if you want but it doesn’t make anything better
We can replace Christian nationalism with Hindu nationalism
Canada’s Conservative Party has promised mass immigration from India/fast tracking any that want to come here because they know they will vote for them. The same would happen with Republicans
Meanwhile our Liberal Party gets booed when they go to mosques because they are pro-gay. We had nationwide protests against gay/trans last summer organized by mosques. Even though the majority participating were your rural white people just because of our demographics
It’s like listening to a carnival mirror talk.
The KKK and Adolf Hitler were not known for their diversity hires.
As a white dude I don’t feel like this at all. There are plenty of outspoken progressive men all over popular media, and at every level of society. It only feels this way because progressive messaging asks men to do a lot more soul searching, while conservative messaging is effectively information warfare designed to validate low effort biases and reinforce historical power structures.
Name 3
When people find themselves in stress, they will always vote conservative to ensure their own survival. Right now, many young people can’t afford housing, they have to spend more time working than living. This is not surprising.
Which makes no fucking sense since conservatives just make those issues worse.
Reactionary viewpoints are a result of crumbling and decaying societies. They cling to what once was, rather than trying to progress onward to Socialism.
Reactionaries are wrong, of course, but the origin of these viewpoints currently is from Capitalism’s failures.
In the EU.
In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines, with the remainder being down to race, education, wealth and urbanness, which actually makes me think what’s going on in Europe is a somewhat unrelated phenomenon.
In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines,
Not as much as the “lol boomers” crowd would have you believe.
There’s a lot more <50 at Trump’s rallies than >60.
Same with the Jan6 traitors. Lots of them were <40
Jan 6 guys are nothing like a representative sample. Trailer park grandpa couldn’t show up to that for multiple reasons. Even then, I’d guess a median age of 45 just based on the videos. The shaman guy was like 32 and he was kind of a baby.
I know less about normal Trump rallies, but I don’t really need to because there’s actual polling to rely on. MAGA youth exist, but they’re underrepresented and even more heavily poor, white, uneducated and rural. Meanwhile, in Europe, there’s basically no correlation. Young and old alike support AfD about the same.
What we have on this continent is definitely fascism, fueled by pure, barely-directed hate and hostile to democracy. In Europe, I wonder if it’s more of a reversion to Japan-like policy, which might have been more natural for these ancient kingdoms all along. That’s just a wild guess, but I hope so, because I like democracy.
You need to leave your basement
Ooh, brilliant counterargument. /s
No, you really need to get out and look around.
Your debate skills are breathtaking. Say something about cheeto dust or mountain dew next. Then I’ll start asking how many teeth you have and what your family tree is shaped like. This is an excellent use of both our time. /s
I’m not debating. I’m telling you you need to travel and look around.
Trust me you don’t want a conservative government. They won’t fix the problem they’ll just seek to line their own pockets and then by doing so make everything worse.
This is not about conservatives, many of the countries listed here currently have or recently had conservative governments. The far right is a whole other level.
Imagine letting conservatives ruin your economy and thinking “I need a more extreme version of this.”
Propaganda is a hell of a drug…
Conservatives make the world worse, they get booted out and liberals fail to fix it, they get booted out and then people look for a “strong man” who can cut through red tape and fix things once and for all.
The far right embodies that third person. An extra bonus of a far right rule is the Overton window lurches so far to the right that the conservatives can pretend to be centrist and the liberals pretend to be left-wing.
Yeah to anyone honest about what’s happening, it looks more like liberals fuck everything up, conservatives half ass repair stuff to some degree, liberals get back in and fuck it up even worse, conservatives make more half assed repairs but are unwilling to do what needs to be done because of liberal feel good fake altruism bullshit self serving sentiment. That’s when the nasty fuckers of the far right start getting support of the young.
Whereas my perspective is that conservatives fuck things up then it swings left(ish) who can’t deliver recover enough before the conservatives get to fuck stuff up again while the media is heavily favouring the conservatives (fueling your narrative) and on the cycle goes. So the back and forth and left creeping to the middle (where they see success) leaves the far right as an alternative - and current rhetoric makes it less of an acceptable outlier.
Yeah that’s your perspective, bur it’s fantasy. Numbers dont lie but liberals do.
In Europe…
Yes, as the blurb says in the fourth word or so.
Edit: did the math and counted up to the fourth word
What you just did is the equivalent to replying all to a mass email chain telling people to stop replying all
Why are you “all”? Lol
You’re the only one who got the notification
Weird you can comment on this chain without seeing it…
You must be fun at parties
This is the result of the left focusing so hard on identity politics and immigration. The right didn’t have to do shit… it was inevitable.
Identity politics surely is to blame for the rise of fascism. Just like the last time in the years 1915-1945.
You are almost quoting the fascist playbook line of “look what you made me do”.
They’re kinda right, but not in the way they think they are. It’s not that the left has being advocating for minority rights that is the problem, it’s that they have been focusing on that while dropping policies to support the working class that is the issue. The fact that getting more women and black people on to corporate boards has been more of a focus than affordable housing has been slowly driving alienation from mainstream left wing parties.
In much of Europe the left have been victims of former success. Many of the (former) leftist political parties and their constituents have foregone leftist policies because said policies gave them the social mobility to move into a higher strata of society.
In effect it is successful class war waged by the capitalist class, who have dismantled their greatest political opposition and employed a tactic of divide and conquer for the lump sum of petty cash.
Note, I do not say that having a fair and egalitarian society isn’t a part of socialist ideology, but focusing on cultural symbolics instead of improving material conditions is just bourgeoisie propaganda.
I’m right, but you don’t have to like it, I’m okay with that.
People are losing faith with the failing status quo, so some are (incorrectly) adopting a highly reactionary position to cling to what they percieved has been lost, rather than progressing along to Socialism.
This is a consequence of the long term failings of Capitalism, coupled with weak leftist movements and a lack of general theory-reading.
Look, socialism never fucking works. Far-right governments, while unpleasant, do.
Why do you say Socialism doesn’t work? Why do you say far-right governments do? Is it vibes?
General knowledge of the last 150 years world history.
What part of that general knowledge of the last 150 years of world history says that worker ownership doesn’t work, and that fascism does?
A socialized capitalism will always be coopted by the ones with more money in pursuit of even more money.
What is a “Socialized Capitalism?”
I suspect they mean capitalism with a light sprinkle of social safety nets.
I do too, but I want to know exactly, because I don’t see how Social Democracy has anything to do with what I said, haha
To the surprise of no one. This is the result of neolibs that keep electing “moderates” which never fix any issues.
A great video for anyone that hasn’t seen it yet:
