{"id":87637,"date":"2024-07-01T17:07:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=87637"},"modified":"2024-07-01T17:07:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:07:31","slug":"why-young-europeans-are-embracing-the-far-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/why-young-europeans-are-embracing-the-far-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Why young Europeans are embracing the far right"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Progressives have long counted on young people to champion their causes. Just five years ago, young Europeans\u00a0voted\u00a0for parties advocating climate action, social justice, and democratic reform.<\/p>\n

But this may no longer be a viable political strategy. June\u2019s European Parliament elections showed that many young voters have shifted to the far right, enabling Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and anti-establishment parties to make significant gains.<\/p>\n

This trend is not confined to Europe. Young Kenyans protesting against new taxes stormed parliament this month, and\u00a0several were killed\u00a0when the police opened fire. Around the world, a new youth politics is emerging. While not always aligned with the far right, this movement is often anti-status quo, serving as a powerful warning to politicians about the need to reconsider both their message and their medium in appealing to disaffected young voters.<\/p>\n

These voters\u2019 rightward shift is apparent across the European Union. After the overwhelming youth support for the Greens in 2019,\u00a016 percent\u00a0of German voters under 25 voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in this year\u2019s European elections, putting the party in\u00a0second place<\/a>\u00a0behind the centre-right Christian Democrats and well ahead of Chancellor\u00a0Olaf Scholz\u2019s Social Democrats. In France,\u00a030 percent of the youth vote\u00a0went to Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right National Rally. This outcome was in line with the\u00a02022 presidential election run-off, when Le Pen won 39 percent of voters aged 18 to 24 and 49 percent of those aged 25 to 34.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a021 percent of Italian voters aged 18 to 34\u00a0helped Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni\u2019s Brothers of Italy win a strong mandate to pursue its agenda. In Spain, the ultra-conservative Vox party\u00a0increased\u00a0its share of the youngest voters (under 25) to 12.4 percent. By contrast, the far-right Sweden Democrats came in fourth, despite\u00a0winning 10 percent\u00a0of voters aged 22 to 30.<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s swing to the right has led many politicians to harden their positions on such issues as immigration. But young voters\u2019 growing support for xenophobic, anti-EU, and ultra-conservative parties is driven less by anti-immigrant sentiment than by a powerful sense of betrayal by establishment politicians. As older generations, who have lived economically secure lives, consume a growing share of government budgets through generous pensions and health care, young Europeans grapple with a\u00a0cost-of-living crisis\u00a0and dwindling economic prospects.<\/p>\n

This growing frustration can be partly attributed to EU politicians\u2019 failure to ensure stable, well-paid jobs for young people. Youth unemployment among Europeans aged 15 to 24\u00a0reached 13.8 percent\u00a0in 2023. In Spain, the rate was 27.9 percent, compared with 27.7 percent in Greece, 20.7 percent in Italy, and 18.9 percent in Sweden.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there has been some progress in addressing the problem. Youth unemployment in France\u00a0declined\u00a0from 25 percent in 2016 to 15.7 percent in 2023; in Italy, it\u00a0fell\u00a0from 42.7 percent in 2014 to 22.8 percent in 2024; in the Netherlands, it\u00a0decreased\u00a0from 13.2 percent \u00a0in 2013 to 8.7 percent in 2023; and in Germany, it\u00a0dropped from 15.5 percent to 6 percent between 2005 and 2023. Even so, support for the far right has increased across the bloc amid growing evidence that no matter how hard they work, most young people will end up\u00a0poorer than their parents.<\/p>\n

The problem extends beyond the labour market. In many European countries, young people are also navigating a housing crisis, overcrowded\u00a0classrooms, and struggling\u00a0health-care systems. In the face of rising rents, exorbitant tuition fees and stagnant real wages, young voters are increasingly asking themselves who will address their concerns. Far-right politicians, while wrongly blaming immigration, at least recognise that there is a problem, and they are doing so in ways that resonate with younger voters.<\/p>\n

Social media is a prime example. In the 1960s, media theorist Marshall McLuhan highlighted the importance of\u00a0how\u00a0messages were communicated, not just what was being said. The medium through which people communicate, he argued, shaped their interactions. His famous\u00a0observation\u00a0that \u201cthe medium is the message\u201d is even more pertinent in the age of platforms like TikTok, which\u00a0enable\u00a0far-right demagogues to tailor their messaging to young people.<\/p>\n

What veteran politicians who mistake social media for a broadcast medium fail to understand is that it can be a powerful tool for fostering engagement, bonding and identity formation. But politicians who view social media as a round-the-clock focus group, shaping their policies according to voters\u2019 whims and immediate reactions, are just as dangerous as those who ignore it entirely.<\/p>\n

By fuelling shared grievances, social media can help political movements expand and rally supporters. For example, while Scholz\u00a0belatedly joined TikTok\u00a0in April, the German far right has\u00a0used the platform\u00a0to create a powerful narrative\u2014some might say an alternative universe\u2014that speaks to young voters\u2019 fears and anxieties. Consequently, many EU policymakers feel increasingly isolated as they try to do their jobs while online groups mobilise against them.<\/p>\n

As a generation of young voters spends much of its time on such platforms as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram\u2014in the United States, teens spend an average of\u00a04.8 hours per day\u00a0on social media\u2014the result could be a toxic political cocktail. To win back disaffected young people, political leaders must offer them a future they can believe in and embrace the media platforms where young people live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progressives have long counted on young people to champion their causes. Just five years ago, young Europeans\u00a0voted\u00a0for parties advocating climate action, social justice, and democratic reform. But this may no longer be a viable political …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":522,"featured_media":87638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2015,325,1025,291,694,2131,2036],"class_list":["post-87637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-domestic-politics","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-italy","tag-spain"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy young Europeans are embracing the far right | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/why-young-europeans-are-embracing-the-far-right\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why young Europeans are embracing the far right | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Progressives have long counted on young people to champion their causes. 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