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.
Europeans have a long history of blaming foreigners for their problems when times are tough. This isn’t really anything new.
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Unfortunately, American politics is so toxic, its infected nearly every country its come into contact with.
Understanably, american money and election interference is the reason European politics is becoming more americanised. For example, it was regan who radicalised thatcher. It was American and Russian dark money that funded vote leave (brexit). It was the CIA who funded far right groups all over Europe. Its American, far right Christian groups who try to lobby to take away reproductive freedom for women etc. etc.
America is empire now and no ones laughing anymore.
Europe has had so many far right groups throughout history and they haven’t gone anywhere. You can definitely think of a few in recent history, not even mentioning Russia. You can just dismiss this away as some foreign influence, this is a problem the world is facing and it’s a problem with me and you.
I don’t think I dismissed it but mearly made sure that all the factors leading to it were included. In fact, its people taking issue with me mentioning them who are dismissing things they dont like. If you’re in denial about that, then you’re probably in detail about how much of an influence America was on Hitler too.
For sure, its not like we need any help with making far right groups. However, we have help making them none the less.
I mean, maybe the rise of the far right in America and then a similar rise across the world, with a sufficient lag time, is completely unrelated. Maybe operation galdio didn’t do exactly what it set out to do. Maybe its better to blame people for the additional effect it has on them, outside of their control. I mean, that would be very in keeping with far right thinking.
Must suck living in a place with 450 million people none of which can think for themselves and instead are just vessels for the thoughts of other civilizations
Own up to your own crap if you want to fix it, or don’t own it and blame foreigners. See if I care.
Own up to your own crap if you want to fix it
They said, without a hint of irony.
Again, said without a hint of irony. Please get some self awareness before replying again. Youre taking the sport out of it.
Some of us are capable of holding all the contributing factors in their heads and not just ignore the ones they dont want to talk about. It doesn’t mean we don’t have our own problems but it also doesn’t mean that there isn’t another very serious problem at hand.
Hmm clearly I need to repeat myself with you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Let me know if you need a primer on logical fallacies. I am sure I can find one for your level.
Clearly you think yourself far smarter than you are. Especially considering you can’t even see yourself fall foul of the fallacy you claim to see. As adorable as it is, I remember when I first found out about fallacies too, its a bit boring and it wouldn’t make me wrong either. That is if you bothered learning any of the other fallacies.
Let me help you, as you’re clearly struggling here: why is it that only the Europeans, in this instance, that have to own their crap? Why are we not allowed to consider any other contributing factors? How is me mentioning another factor, while not denying the problems at home, not owing it?
It doesn’t make sense does it?
Those are quite some claims. Some I’ve never heard of.
You’ll have to excuse me for being skeptical.
I can understand that. I imagine the main cause is what you’ll find if you look into “operation gladio.”
That’s quite a stretch to blame America for the AfD.
It might well have been, had i made that claim.
You keep missing a few key words. American Corporations and Global Billionaires. Our politicians and far right think tanks have their marching orders. They aren’t the driving force themselves.
Its funny, no one insists on that correction, when it comes to the Roman or British empires.
I think it’s pretty clear the rich people fucked them up too. The working class isn’t chomping at the bit to go oppress people. The Royal Navy literally abducted sailors to keep it’s empire going, and Rome forced “barbarians” into the military to create a civil military divide that protected Italians from really feeling the cost. But then that system killed the Republic, and later the Western Roman Empire.
Workers want two things. To provide for their loved ones and to have a bit of time they can enjoy with their loved ones. The ideas of imperialism and especially radical conservatism have to be jammed down their throats from day 1 of school. That takes money and influence. You know who has money and influence?
It ain’t the people.
I agree completely and i respect you giving context. I hope you can understand, its not that common that people realise that.
Yeah. If we could get more people realizing that then maybe we could get representatives that are willing to hold the executive to account and not just play partisan games.
For what it’s worth, it’s incredibly frustrating as a European with a functioning brain too.
I don’t know what deregulation of sewage plants would even look like. Do you mean I’m how they are built or their design or their day to day operations or how many of the workers at them are private vs public?
IIRC, one of the effects of Brexit is that the UK’s sewage outlets to the ocean were no longer bound by EU regulations, which led to extremely high sewage contamination and closing of a number of English (specifically English, I want to say) beaches.
…thank you for informing me I guess.
It’s all about immigration and housing.
I’m pretty fair left. It’s weird that traditionally left leaning parties were about housing and jobs. But they seem to have lost their way.
The more you care about certain things the more you have to vote right because the left got their head in the sand.
I really wish the republicans weren’t trying to start a dictatorship and we had some actual options for who to vote for.
I would always point out that European security has been subsidized by the American taxpayer for 70 years. Finally starting to see that change, I just hope idiots like Geert aren’t the ones leading that charge.
I mean, not trying to sound like a pessimist as much as a realist. Even if Europe started paying the full sum of what we’re paying in defense subsidies, I seriously doubt we’d cut that spending. Raytheon and Lockheed’s investors are counting on us.
Yeah you’re probably right. It’d likely just move the bulk of the expenditure over to Asia to contain China
That’s not actually all that surprising. The far-right, at least in Germany, is far more prominent on social media. It sucks but I don’t think we can prevent that. We have a lot of complex problems but social media favors short answers instead of complex ones. A lot of younger people simply lack the critical thinking to see these simple answers for what they are - bullshit. And I can’t blame them, they have been exposed to this bullshit for most of their lives.
I don’t know how it is in Germany, though I am convinced our methods in the U.S to educate and school kids and teens actively hurt critical thinking skills. They’re not taught to make decisions. They’re taught to follow set rules, ask for permission, and be ashamed if they fail. They’re not taught to learn, they’re taught to work.
They’re taught to follow set rules, ask for permission, and be ashamed if they fail. They’re not taught to learn, they’re taught to work.
This might be even more ingrained in German culture.
That’s a feature, not a bug. The far right has been attacking our educational system since Reagan, if not before.
They can’t exist with a well educated populace.
I was coming in here to suggest this. The right around the world, almost certainly with the aid of Russia’s massive troll farm, has really stepped up its game in terms of internet outreach to young people.
I do agree that social media is a huge driver of our societal problems and not fixing them, but I think you have the order reversed, social media is extremely effective at transmitting short, easy answers to our problems because that’s what people gravitate to on the whole. Especially extremely scared and desperate people, and young people especially see a lot of reasons to be afraid about what the future is going to look like.
We haven’t even really gotten to ecoFascism yet, but I think it’s inevitable to rise as things continue marching forward without dramatic societal changes
It’s amazing that it needs to be said, but Boomer politics won’t die with boomers. We’ll still have the same problems, but people will be more desperate as we will have fewer solutions and resources to throw at them than previous generations
Also worth pointing out that only a slight majority of boomers are very conservative. If you look at the demographics of the last couple presidential elections, you’ll see that only slightly more boomers voted conservative than liberal, and only slightly more younger folks voted liberal than conservative.
There’s this impression that the distinction is much more significant than it actually is. As a liberal boomer, I’m a little sensitive about it.
I dont know about the US but in the UK the age gap is vast. Something like 80% of 75+ vote tory or extreme right and a similar % of under 30 for lib/lab/green
If that’s correct, that’s a much more significant difference than in the US.
Does Europe have the same kind of post war baby boom generation that the US has?
Cant speak for all Europe, but again in the UK it exists but is far less pronounced than in the US. A slight uptick rather than a boom. Dont forget that while the US economy was going gangbusters after the war as the only untouched industrial economy most of europe was either rebuilding from ruins or was close to bankrupt.
w.r.t. voting intension, I slightly over egged it from memory, but it was about 75% left for under 30s and 70% right for over 70s at the last election. link
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.
That what I read out of it, too.
Disillusion with our future is setting in (and to what part it’s due to the negative news cycle, the growing gap between rich and poor, social media propaganda or other things can be argued).
But there was, and is, no large, left movement with an attractive message to pick up those people, and right wingers both own all the big media and have long been conditioned to blame liberals and the left at large for all of their problems.
During the Occupy Wallstreet days, I had hope, but what once was a movement of angry people with a good cause feels like it has since been replaced by a movement of even angrier people fighting those that want to fix things.
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
Look, socialism never fucking works. Far-right governments, while unpleasant, do.
This is like saying a meatgrinder is a good place to live because it works
Yes I already said it was unpleasant yet effective. You felt the need to repeat it for some reason
Because that’s a bullshit take. Effective at what exactly? Oppressing people? Killing minorities? Certainly not effective at making people’s lives better, unless you are part of the ruling class.
Yeah so you’re having an ideological discussion while I’m having a historical one. However, fascism does tend to make the general populations lives better than the average under socialism. Either way you can’t speak all that freely but less likely to starve than under communism.
(You’re ignoring how good socialist governments were at offing minorities and undesirables for “the common good”. Fuck man, socialism is like fascism on steroids)
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?
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What exactly? I’ve read books and studied history, and just generally gesturing without making any coherent point is pretty worthless, don’t you think?
Also, I would rather not fuck you.
No. You clearly have not.
Sounds like you never have and can’t name one relevant to the conversation as a result.
“All of it” too complicated for you to grasp, or do you consider fucking Cuba a success? China doesn’t count, even if it pretends to be communist, its fascist amd capitalistic as hell.
Ah, I see, you’re one of them.
You lost the war; it wasn’t close. No, they don’t.
One of what? Person not fucking delusional? Just look at all those successful communist countries
Yeah, communism hasn’t worked impressively either. I’d still prefer them over the Nazis, especially as a Jew.
Not OP, to be clear, I got here through your post history because I wanted to check why criticising fascists made you so defensive.
Mostly the bullshit and lies, not the criticizing fascists part.
There’s a lot of them right here on lemmy. If you don’t know what to look for, they’re the ones yelling at everyone not to vote. They’re the ones you’ll see on every post that’s critical of Biden, but they’re nowhere to be found n any news critical of Trump.
They’re the ones that either disappear, or resort to personal attacks when you simply ask them who else can win the White House if not Biden.
They’re all over lemmy. They are just counting on you not being aware of it.
Yup, everyone who doesn’t like your president or your team is a horrible no good far right troll. It’s amazing how well one can do when you get paid by Soros and Koch!
Soros and Koch
Ohh, good for my bingo card
You know what the Kochs do right? And who promised to help that industry if they give them 1 billion?
I’m aware. Please sit and think about the comment you responded to though. Are there really Soros bucks? Does it follow that Koch bucks are likely either? Or maybe I’m just poking fun at the fact that the right accuses me of being a Soros funded Communist and you guys accuse me of voting for Trump
You had me in the first half 😅
Did I say everyone? It’s very easy to tell the ones that are though.
VERY easy.
Oh no! you left yourself verbal wiggle room. I guess some of them are nice people?
There are always exceptions. This is because the world we live in isn’t as back and white as you all like to paint it.
No. You just used sweeping generalizations with the barest of a fig cover. Even now. They’re “exceptions” meaning you think your post is the rule. So you’re just trying to split technical hairs so you don’t have to face criticism.
Again, I said there’s a lot of them. A LOT. I didn’t say “all” or even “most.” I said A LOT. That, by definition- is not a sweeping generalization. It’s a statement of an indiscriminate, and unknown amount. Similar to “a few”, or “some.”
That you’re here whining and splitting hairs over this says a lot more about you than it does me.
Something something something protest too much methinks.
That is the very definition of a sweeping generalization. For example, how do you quantify “a lot”? And yeah that would be convenient for you wouldn’t it? Getting called on your attempt to demonize independents by someone who fit your profile. Alas, no.
My young coworkers seem to believe that 250k refugees of which 100k got a house are the reason we have a housing shortage of well over 400k.
These kids are worse off than i am when it comes to housing, so how surprising is it that they vote far right.
One of them asked me: “so, you’re not racist?” Nah “shame, really”. Motherfucker forgot my family isn’t from here and i’ve often been treated like subhuman trash for being a foreigner despite being born here and speaking the language like it is my own (because it is).
They asked you if you’re not racist, as if it’s normal to be racist??
It’s sad to see how people get manipulated to the point that they can’t understand that even a natural population growth without immigration can cause a housing crisis, if we don’t build and maintain the houses. And immigrants come to work anyway, which provides a disproportionately high value to the economy compared to what most of them are paid.
hat even a natural population growth without immigration can cause a housing crisis
Eh it’s more complicated than that because populations in Europe aren’t growing. It’s about urbanisation there’s plenty of houses available in villages you don’t want to live in, and I don’t mean that as an insult to the villages they’re more often than not perfectly quaint. Another factor is shifting standards, people by and large have much more space per person than in the past.
Yes true, my perception is biased to a local housing problem where younger people can’t afford apartments while old rich people own so many.
Regardless, it’s still sad that immigrants are being blamed. Even urbanisation means that they’re citizens of that country, and they caused the problem themselves.
Hold up. Are you telling me that 100,000 refugees already own homes? Be right back, need to go vote conservative real quick.
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:
Prominent gender gaps in the results, which is entirely unsurprising (men much more likely to vote far right than women). I think the left-right breakdown could be more explicit too, as in many cases the left wing votes are being split between a bunch of parties, with the right wing settling on only one or two. That’s still in an issue in countries that use FPTP voting systems, of course.
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.
It makes all the sense in the world. Horrible people want to be in power. So they market themselves as the just the strong man you need to deal with these problems. No problems? well then they just create them. There isn’t anything stopping them from just lying about where the problems came from, so it turns into a self licking ice cream cone.
Probably because things are getting worse but liberal parties are more concerned with keeping up the status quo than actually improving things, so you get a lot of apathy and people taking a gamble which will not pan out well.
The walls are being built.
It’s like people forgot that 4chan and the like exist.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
In 2022, while Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy received votes from every age bracket, data suggested the young favored left-wing parties more.
Bardella’s strong presence on TikTok might have something to do with it: Pollsters found that about one-third of young people said they rely on the app to follow the election campaign.
The survey results also don’t automatically translate into electoral success, as the researchers estimated just 30 percent of young people would end up casting a ballot.
“Flemish Interest is very well aware of this, and explicitly targets young women in its campaign to adjust its image,” said Peter Van Aelst, a professor at the University of Antwerp.
The original article contains 960 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
just proves that manipulation works, and that everyone being online on "smart"phones (== owner dumber on average) has made it so much easier to reach them, and social media is giving the algorithms the crucial information on how best to manipulate each individual. I hate it.
Chimps off the old bloc.
