It’s not just boomers, young people are voting far right too
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.)
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
American hegemony was a conscious American policy choice. We didn't want the Euros having an independent foreign policy, we wanted them reliant on American military protection. This was how the US kept those bits of its empire in line.
Notice how the only Western European country that even pays lip service to independent action is France, the one Western European country with a military capable of independent operation. And then we get "Freedom Fries" and all that shit whenever they don't do whatever the current US admin wants.
The single biggest thing Trump fucked up for the US was pushing NATO countries to spend more on defence. This will drastically reduce US influence over the continent in the coming decades, speeding up America's worsening diplomatic isolation.
I’d prefer a multipolar world provided the other poles are actual democracies. Europe should step up and have a bigger say
Freedom fries = that thing that was a week long 21 years ago.
If it were a person it could legally drink...but you are welcome to bring it up again for another 21 years as some sorta attempt a a deep conversation killer.
I think that's a bad take. Here's the thing, "freedom fries" wasn't a self-enclosed phenomenon. It was part of a broader jingoistic fever that swept through the US post-9/11. Yeah, sure, it's fair to joke about Americans being dumb, but our brains dead ass shut off after 9/11, and anyone could do anything if they just waved their hands and said "terrorists, 9/11". And Operation Iraqi freedom was just one of the turd sandwiches we ferociously gobbled down under such framing. Freedom fries happened because France wouldn't support our stupid, pointless invasion, and the boomer email network kicked into overdrive to create a new meme (in the literal sense of the word) of replacing anything having to do with the treacherous French with Freedom. And that was what we did to people who owed us nothing, so it felt much more dangerous to step out against it as an American, at least in the early days of the war.
Never found any of it funny. You go ahead and make your "jokes" for another 21 years. Maybe someone will laugh at them.
Oh and btw I went to the Iraq protests. Maybe you were afraid but I wasn't. Maybe that's why I don't feel like making "jokes" to feel tough now.
Not my jokes, and I don't think it's funny. You might want to re-read my post, I certainly wasn't celebrating the attitude that spawned freedom fries.
Was your jokes.
Okay, bud. I re-read and I didn't see what you were talking about about, so I really think there's been some kind of misunderstanding. But okay.
I am not your buddy. Hey why don't you make another joke about something that happened 21 years ago for a single week? That is always funny
It's the internet, take a breath. I mean that seriously; you don't have to like me, idgaf, but it's not worth getting worked up about. You might benefit from taking a break, maybe drink some water or something.
No need to respond, I concede, you won the argument. Just take some time and reflect on the good things you've got.
You in a week: this one time there was freedom fries thing and I have a ten page manifesto proving that it is key to everything
You said it yourself "wasn’t a self-enclosed phenomenon. It". I know your type. Nothing can ever just happen. Everything has to be fit into a context and if it doesn't, well you will make a context. And if further data doesn't fit the context? Well you ignore it.
You took 300 million people from 21 years ago and flattened them into your strawman that you can joke about. Anyone that intellectually dishonest claiming to concede an argument is dubious.
But hey you probably think I am a dumb shit not worth talking to since I was alive and in the US in 2003 and as you said it "wasn’t a self-enclosed phenomenon.".
I was alive and in the US then, too. I very plainly remember the nationalist fervor that the US was wrapped up in at the time; I remember the Dixie Chicks getting cancelled before cancelling was a thing because they called Bush out. Nothing exists in a void, history is ALL context.
Look, in a week, I'll be drinking water, downloading memes, and going to work, not thinking about freedom fries. If you want to still be thinking about this shit by then, don't let me get in the way of a good time.
Nah in a week you will be still making your jokes about what a single kitchen did 21 years ago one time and using it as a justification for your stereotypes.
Tell me another joke funny man