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.)
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.
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