- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus@lemy.lol
- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus@lemy.lol
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.
Arguably the hard right foreign policies of the US from the last 10-20 years are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing. You guys blew up the middle east…
You think the EU didn’t have a hand in that? Who did Libya again? Who was famous for doing stuff in Northern and Western Africa? Who drew the lines that fucked half the world? Who insisted on keeping their colonies until it was absolutely too late to stop strong man rebellions from becoming dictatorships?
The US is in the picture, but it’s not alone by a long shot.
God no, the EU countries are not blameless. But they by far not the prime mover of the blowing up of the Middle East.
Junior partners are junior.
Oh? The US forced the French to keep operating in Africa until (checks notes) last year? The US forced them to operate colonies until they couldn’t be militarily sustained anymore? The US forced the dumbest drawing of country borders? The US forced Europe to take part in cold war geopolitics?
Take some responsibility.
Are you aware of the concept of “orders of magnitude”?
Are you aware of what’s happening in Gaza right now? Did you know France was one of Saddam’s biggest arms suppliers during the Iran Iraq war?
You really really need to read more history.
None of this negates my argument.
I’m making the argument that the Europeans, while being junior partners in imperialist domination are not the main drivers, and are in fact an order of magnitude less powerful than the US. Wtf is your argument? That they are co-equal to the Americans?
That’s not what you said. The conflicts from the last 10-20 years are rooted in colonialism, the break up of the Ottoman empire, and the rise of single resource economies. The US is certainly the leading imperial power right now, but they didn’t set this stage.
The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t and in a lot of cases, outright sponsor it
This whole immigration kerfuffle is simply top down shenanigans from the ruling elite to divide the poor
Europeans have a long history of blaming foreigners for their problems when times are tough. This isn’t really anything new.
Humanity has that long history.
For what it’s worth, it’s incredibly frustrating as a European with a functioning brain too.
This comment shows a large misunderstanding of european culture, policits, everything really. And I mean this with no offense, but there’s no nice way to say it.
The people who were - and still are - clowning on Americans for their politics are a different group than the people currently voting far right. You’re not dunking on the people you think you are. It’s tragically funny in a way because internet active and mostly left leaning circles still spend a lot of their time dunking on american politics while failing to see the growing trend of far right acceptance in Europe.
Europeans also aren’t a singular entity. The comparison of the US vs Europe is almost always bad IMO, as much as people of the internet love to make it - both americans and europeans alike - because the differences between two neighboring european countries are often larger than those between the two most culturally different US states. The country next over is so radically different to mine in terms of politics, economic choices, language, culture, that the only thing making us both “European” is a similar looking ID card and similar looking road signs. When I cross the border and order a coffee they look at me strange and then serve me what I would expect to get at an american coffee shop.
Europe is facing some of the same problems of the US politically speaking. Summing it up to “getting one big wave of immigration” is naive to say the least. There’s a growing discontent with traditional and more moderate parties, which have fundamentally failed to solve what many people see as big issues in their lives. There’s a housing crisis, an ever increasing wealth gap - which even left leaning socialist european parties, which were in power for decades in countries such as mine, have done next to nothing to prevent. There’s a perceived decrease in security - which is real in some places, while false in others but amplified by social media -, a bunch of high profile corruption cases all throughout Europe - often associated with high ranking members in more moderate parties. In short, there’s an ever increasing number of real issues which traditional parties have fundamentally failed to solve. Some because they’re genuinely complex issues, others because of sheer incompetence.
The media in Europe has spent the last few years treating far right parties the same way the media in the US initially treated Trump - painting them and their followers as crazy people which should be ridiculed and often pushing aside whatever issue they pushed as their political flag. The problem is that far right parties in Europe often pick very real problems as their political flags - such as corruption in the case of my country. They offer no actual solutions to the problems, of course, but the attitude of the media helps them paint the idea that the media and traditional parties are aligned in protecting corrupt individuals and that the only way to tackle the problem is to vote for extreme parties. Whatever the “main” political flag is varies from country to country, but the logic is always the same: Problem exists -> problem is pushed aside by media and traditional parties for whatever reason -> far right party picks up problem as their political flag even though they offer no solutions -> people vote for far right party after years of seeing problem be apparently ignored.
The last part on healthcare makes little sense as well. Public or partly public health services are culturally ingrained in a lot of European countries and many of the far right parties have been very outspoken about defending these services - not because they like their existence I’m sure, but because these healthcare systems are too popular to openly attack. A common attribute in a lot of European far right parties is that though they often claim to despise “the left” and make big claims about socialism having destroyed everything and etc, they’ll quickly incorporate any left leaning measure they perceive as popular - often defending measures which are so far left that you won’t even find them in the political plans of far left parties. Far right parties in Europe will incorporate anything they see as popular in their political plans - which they then use as a promotion point, arguing that they are “above” the left and right divide, instead focusing on whatever is “better for the country”.
Add to all of this a fundamental failure in left wing and moderate right wing parties to address many of these issues, even while being in power for decades in the came of some European countries, and the constant attempts by these same parties to silence anyone who so much as mentions hot topics like immigration - often by labeling them as racists, fascists, etc and what you get is a growing distrust in these parties.
But that’s sort of the point they were making, isn’t it? Left-leaning Europeans giving Americans across the spectrum shit for right-leaning politics even though the majority in all cases is slim and vulnerable to reversal?
Remember right before the last Italian election some Italian guy screaming at me how no one in the history of Europe was racist or right-wing. When I asked them afterwards about the election he said the CIA caused it.
Ok buddy. Italy has no history of fascism or racism. Nice to know.
Don’t worry man, we will get you a megaphone to shout “I told you so” as (only men) are conscripted to go throw our lives away for D-Day v2 in Europe, lol. Have fun in the tailgunner’s seat.
Every 70-100 years, some absolute cunt like Putin or Xi rises up and decides it’s a brilliant idea to kill all their young men, some other country’s young men, and the “undesirables” on the other side. They that the war will only last four weeks and victory is guaranteed. It. Never. Is.
Fuck populism and authoritarianism. People get bored and never learn.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They said, without a hint of irony.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
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?
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.