The swing to the right that I have written about in earlier posts is something that younger voters, the 18- to 34-year-olds, are contributing to. They are not yet in the majority but in recent elections around the world the vote share from this demographic has increased markedly. This is something of a surprise given that younger voters normally fit the ‘progressive’ label. What is driving this surge in younger support for right-wing parties?
The reasons are many and varied. Firstly, it is interesting to note that climate change or global warming do not appear among the reasons given. This might give the lie to the belief that most, if not all, young people expect to die or burn in the next decade or so. It would seem that a reasonable number of young voters have more pressing issues on their minds which are more in line with other voters.
They are more concerned about inflation, the cost of living and the ability to get on the housing ladder. It is also interesting who these people are. They are mainly from working class or lower socio-economic backgrounds. These are the people whom the left of politics deserted some time ago. The majority are young males. They do not represent or attend the halls of academia: these types do hard graft to make a living.
In the recent American election, as has been the case here, younger women favoured the left while the opposite was true of younger men. The comparisons with the previous election in 2020 are also interesting: in 2020 the split for young women favoured the Democrats 65 to 33, whereas in 2024 it was 58 to 40; for young men in 2020 the split was 56 to 41 favouring the Democrats, but in 2024 there was a complete switch with a 56 to 42 split in favour of the Republicans.
There is similar movement amongst the young in parts of Europe. In the Dutch election the young voted in increasing numbers for the right-wing party of Geert Wilders, who won the election. In the 2023 French presidential runoff Marine Le Pen won 39 per cent of votes in the 18 to 24 demographic and 49 per cent of those aged 25 to 34. In Italy’s election, Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy was the largest party, with under-35s on 22 per cent. A similar shift is happening in Germany.
A similar trend was evident in the 2024 European Parliament elections. An article on the subject in Politico commented that their grandparents ushered in the sexual revolution but today’s youth want to turn the clock back to 1950. They describe them as the ‘foreigners out’ generation. The reason for this is that the young people see immigration as a large part of the housing problem and their inability to get on the housing ladder.
Politico says, whatever the future twists and turns, young far-right voters will shape European politics for years, if not decades, to come. While Europe’s ‘foreigners out’ generation may have arrived in a surge, it is unlikely to ebb away anytime soon.
