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.)

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    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.

    • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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      Europeans have a long history of blaming foreigners for their problems when times are tough. This isn’t really anything new.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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          I don’t think I dismissed it but mearly made sure that all the factors leading to it were included. In fact, its people taking issue with me mentioning them who are dismissing things they dont like. If you’re in denial about that, then you’re probably in detail about how much of an influence America was on Hitler too.

          For sure, its not like we need any help with making far right groups. However, we have help making them none the less.

          I mean, maybe the rise of the far right in America and then a similar rise across the world, with a sufficient lag time, is completely unrelated. Maybe operation galdio didn’t do exactly what it set out to do. Maybe its better to blame people for the additional effect it has on them, outside of their control. I mean, that would be very in keeping with far right thinking.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        Those are quite some claims. Some I’ve never heard of.

        You’ll have to excuse me for being skeptical.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        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.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            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.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                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.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      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…

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        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.

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          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.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            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.

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                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.

                • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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                  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?

      • escaped_cruzader@lemmy.world
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        are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing

        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

        • WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP@lemmy.world
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          All immigration is a plot to divide us? Are the immigrants actors? That’s ridiculous, I know many people who wouldn’t support sending immigrants back and many people who don’t want any.

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            It’s a shame that there are people in this world so selfish that it’s literally inconceivable that others would willingly accept some economic pain in order to ensure people can be saved from almost certain death…

            If we can figure out how to land a goddamn satellite on an asteroid and then have it return, if we can design and land a freaking bus sized rover on another planet using a freaking sky crane, then I think we can handle figuring out how to properly incorporate immigrants into our economy if we’d only listen to actually intelligent experts…

            But no, let’s listen to angry shitty business running orange man and his contemporaries around the world… He said mean things about the people that make me mad so he’s my man!

        • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world
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          The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t

          That’s only for the war refugees. Sending people back to, say, Eritrea, would mean they’d be executed for leaving the country (which is illegal there).

          Those only represent a tiny fraction of the immigrants though, and they’re not the ones “taking all the jobs”, that’s the worker immigrants.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            They aren’t even “taking” the jobs. That’s the suits doing that. They decide who to hire. And if they had to pay the immigrants what they have to pay you then it would be a lot more fair of a labor market. But they don’t want you thinking about that. They want you thinking the boss just had to go with this random immigrant who showed up one day. Like he got to work before you and the boss was like, “I guess I have to fire Quack now?”

    • Blubber28@lemmy.world
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      For what it’s worth, it’s incredibly frustrating as a European with a functioning brain too.

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      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.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        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 “

        If we can put it off just a few more years I’ll be too old to conscript back into the military and I can go hide in the mountains.

    • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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      It’s all about immigration and housing.

      I’m pretty fair left. It’s weird that traditionally left leaning parties were about housing and jobs. But they seem to have lost their way.

      The more you care about certain things the more you have to vote right because the left got their head in the sand.

      • WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP@lemmy.world
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        I really wish the republicans weren’t trying to start a dictatorship and we had some actual options for who to vote for.

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      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.

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        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.

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          Yeah you’re probably right. It’d likely just move the bulk of the expenditure over to Asia to contain China

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    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.

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      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.

      • slouching_employer@lemmy.one
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        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.

        This might be even more ingrained in German culture.

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        That’s a feature, not a bug. The far right has been attacking our educational system since Reagan, if not before.

        They can’t exist with a well educated populace.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      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.

    • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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      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

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        We aren’t getting to eco fascism because pollution populism is all the rage. After all, if Taylor Swift can fly around the world easily, why can’t I drive around in my emotional support truck?

  • moon@lemmy.ml
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    It’s amazing that it needs to be said, but Boomer politics won’t die with boomers. We’ll still have the same problems, but people will be more desperate as we will have fewer solutions and resources to throw at them than previous generations

    • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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      Also worth pointing out that only a slight majority of boomers are very conservative. If you look at the demographics of the last couple presidential elections, you’ll see that only slightly more boomers voted conservative than liberal, and only slightly more younger folks voted liberal than conservative.

      There’s this impression that the distinction is much more significant than it actually is. As a liberal boomer, I’m a little sensitive about it.

      • Womble@lemmy.world
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        I dont know about the US but in the UK the age gap is vast. Something like 80% of 75+ vote tory or extreme right and a similar % of under 30 for lib/lab/green

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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          If that’s correct, that’s a much more significant difference than in the US.

          Does Europe have the same kind of post war baby boom generation that the US has?

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            Cant speak for all Europe, but again in the UK it exists but is far less pronounced than in the US. A slight uptick rather than a boom. Dont forget that while the US economy was going gangbusters after the war as the only untouched industrial economy most of europe was either rebuilding from ruins or was close to bankrupt.

            w.r.t. voting intension, I slightly over egged it from memory, but it was about 75% left for under 30s and 70% right for over 70s at the last election. link

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    People are losing faith with the failing status quo, so some are (incorrectly) adopting a highly reactionary position to cling to what they percieved has been lost, rather than progressing along to Socialism.

    This is a consequence of the long term failings of Capitalism, coupled with weak leftist movements and a lack of general theory-reading.

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      A socialized capitalism will always be coopted by the ones with more money in pursuit of even more money.

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            I do too, but I want to know exactly, because I don’t see how Social Democracy has anything to do with what I said, haha

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      That what I read out of it, too.

      Disillusion with our future is setting in (and to what part it’s due to the negative news cycle, the growing gap between rich and poor, social media propaganda or other things can be argued).

      But there was, and is, no large, left movement with an attractive message to pick up those people, and right wingers both own all the big media and have long been conditioned to blame liberals and the left at large for all of their problems.

      During the Occupy Wallstreet days, I had hope, but what once was a movement of angry people with a good cause feels like it has since been replaced by a movement of even angrier people fighting those that want to fix things.

        • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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          One of what? Person not fucking delusional? Just look at all those successful communist countries

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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            Yeah, communism hasn’t worked impressively either. I’d still prefer them over the Nazis, especially as a Jew.

            Not OP, to be clear, I got here through your post history because I wanted to check why criticising fascists made you so defensive.

        • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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          Yes I already said it was unpleasant yet effective. You felt the need to repeat it for some reason

          • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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            Because that’s a bullshit take. Effective at what exactly? Oppressing people? Killing minorities? Certainly not effective at making people’s lives better, unless you are part of the ruling class.

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              Yeah so you’re having an ideological discussion while I’m having a historical one. However, fascism does tend to make the general populations lives better than the average under socialism. Either way you can’t speak all that freely but less likely to starve than under communism.

              (You’re ignoring how good socialist governments were at offing minorities and undesirables for “the common good”. Fuck man, socialism is like fascism on steroids)

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        Why do you say Socialism doesn’t work? Why do you say far-right governments do? Is it vibes?

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            What part of that general knowledge of the last 150 years of world history says that worker ownership doesn’t work, and that fascism does?

              • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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                What exactly? I’ve read books and studied history, and just generally gesturing without making any coherent point is pretty worthless, don’t you think?

                Also, I would rather not fuck you.

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                Sounds like you never have and can’t name one relevant to the conversation as a result.

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                  “All of it” too complicated for you to grasp, or do you consider fucking Cuba a success? China doesn’t count, even if it pretends to be communist, its fascist amd capitalistic as hell.

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    There’s a lot of them right here on lemmy. If you don’t know what to look for, they’re the ones yelling at everyone not to vote. They’re the ones you’ll see on every post that’s critical of Biden, but they’re nowhere to be found n any news critical of Trump.

    They’re the ones that either disappear, or resort to personal attacks when you simply ask them who else can win the White House if not Biden.

    They’re all over lemmy. They are just counting on you not being aware of it.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      Yup, everyone who doesn’t like your president or your team is a horrible no good far right troll. It’s amazing how well one can do when you get paid by Soros and Koch!

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        Soros and Koch

        Ohh, good for my bingo card

        You know what the Kochs do right? And who promised to help that industry if they give them 1 billion?

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          I’m aware. Please sit and think about the comment you responded to though. Are there really Soros bucks? Does it follow that Koch bucks are likely either? Or maybe I’m just poking fun at the fact that the right accuses me of being a Soros funded Communist and you guys accuse me of voting for Trump

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        Did I say everyone? It’s very easy to tell the ones that are though.

        VERY easy.

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          Oh no! you left yourself verbal wiggle room. I guess some of them are nice people?

          • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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            You’re username stands out, this an alt for your hexbear account or are you just at the same tier of not-being-able-to-think-critically?

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              Oh I’m fine. I’m just giving this as much effort as you guys right now. And no this isn’t an alt nor do I have a hexbear account. I just don’t think we should vote for someone whose an accessory to Genocide. It’s not a complex position.

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                1 month ago

                So what, you will instead vote for the party that check notes promises to crush pro-Palestine protests and deport any foreign student participating, and writes down “finish them” on missiles used to kill Palestinians? OK.

              • Asafum@feddit.nl
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                1 month ago

                Then who should we vote for? Someone is going to be president and literally the only choices are Dictator Trump and Status Quo Biden…

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  I don’t know or care. RFK is polling surprisingly well but he’s also RFK. So maybe we don’t vote for president this year. Maybe this year we protest the system instead and challenge the idea that this is a legitimate way to represent us.

          • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            There are always exceptions. This is because the world we live in isn’t as back and white as you all like to paint it.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              No. You just used sweeping generalizations with the barest of a fig cover. Even now. They’re “exceptions” meaning you think your post is the rule. So you’re just trying to split technical hairs so you don’t have to face criticism.

              • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                Again, I said there’s a lot of them. A LOT. I didn’t say “all” or even “most.” I said A LOT. That, by definition- is not a sweeping generalization. It’s a statement of an indiscriminate, and unknown amount. Similar to “a few”, or “some.”

                That you’re here whining and splitting hairs over this says a lot more about you than it does me.

                Something something something protest too much methinks.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  That is the very definition of a sweeping generalization. For example, how do you quantify “a lot”? And yeah that would be convenient for you wouldn’t it? Getting called on your attempt to demonize independents by someone who fit your profile. Alas, no.

  • CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    My young coworkers seem to believe that 250k refugees of which 100k got a house are the reason we have a housing shortage of well over 400k.

    These kids are worse off than i am when it comes to housing, so how surprising is it that they vote far right.

    One of them asked me: “so, you’re not racist?” Nah “shame, really”. Motherfucker forgot my family isn’t from here and i’ve often been treated like subhuman trash for being a foreigner despite being born here and speaking the language like it is my own (because it is).

    • pepperonisalami@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      They asked you if you’re not racist, as if it’s normal to be racist??

      It’s sad to see how people get manipulated to the point that they can’t understand that even a natural population growth without immigration can cause a housing crisis, if we don’t build and maintain the houses. And immigrants come to work anyway, which provides a disproportionately high value to the economy compared to what most of them are paid.

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        It’s almost like if the most profit comes from building giant expensive houses then all you’re going to get is people building gigantic expensive houses and no “starter” homes…

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        hat even a natural population growth without immigration can cause a housing crisis

        Eh it’s more complicated than that because populations in Europe aren’t growing. It’s about urbanisation there’s plenty of houses available in villages you don’t want to live in, and I don’t mean that as an insult to the villages they’re more often than not perfectly quaint. Another factor is shifting standards, people by and large have much more space per person than in the past.

        • pepperonisalami@sh.itjust.works
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          Yes true, my perception is biased to a local housing problem where younger people can’t afford apartments while old rich people own so many.

          Regardless, it’s still sad that immigrants are being blamed. Even urbanisation means that they’re citizens of that country, and they caused the problem themselves.

    • Blaine@lemmy.ml
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      Hold up. Are you telling me that 100,000 refugees already own homes? Be right back, need to go vote conservative real quick.

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    A lot of people vote far-right out of despair. A “things are shit and can’t get any worse” mentality.

    The best defence against the right is government that actually works for the people.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    Trust me you don’t want a conservative government. They won’t fix the problem they’ll just seek to line their own pockets and then by doing so make everything worse.

    • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org
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      1 month ago

      This is not about conservatives, many of the countries listed here currently have or recently had conservative governments. The far right is a whole other level.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Imagine letting conservatives ruin your economy and thinking “I need a more extreme version of this.”

        Propaganda is a hell of a drug…

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          Conservatives make the world worse, they get booted out and liberals fail to fix it, they get booted out and then people look for a “strong man” who can cut through red tape and fix things once and for all.

          The far right embodies that third person. An extra bonus of a far right rule is the Overton window lurches so far to the right that the conservatives can pretend to be centrist and the liberals pretend to be left-wing.

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            Yeah to anyone honest about what’s happening, it looks more like liberals fuck everything up, conservatives half ass repair stuff to some degree, liberals get back in and fuck it up even worse, conservatives make more half assed repairs but are unwilling to do what needs to be done because of liberal feel good fake altruism bullshit self serving sentiment. That’s when the nasty fuckers of the far right start getting support of the young.

            • yeah@feddit.uk
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              30 days ago

              Whereas my perspective is that conservatives fuck things up then it swings left(ish) who can’t deliver recover enough before the conservatives get to fuck stuff up again while the media is heavily favouring the conservatives (fueling your narrative) and on the cycle goes. So the back and forth and left creeping to the middle (where they see success) leaves the far right as an alternative - and current rhetoric makes it less of an acceptable outlier.

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    Prominent gender gaps in the results, which is entirely unsurprising (men much more likely to vote far right than women). I think the left-right breakdown could be more explicit too, as in many cases the left wing votes are being split between a bunch of parties, with the right wing settling on only one or two. That’s still in an issue in countries that use FPTP voting systems, of course.

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    Probably because things are getting worse but liberal parties are more concerned with keeping up the status quo than actually improving things, so you get a lot of apathy and people taking a gamble which will not pan out well.

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    When people find themselves in stress, they will always vote conservative to ensure their own survival. Right now, many young people can’t afford housing, they have to spend more time working than living. This is not surprising.

      • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Reactionary viewpoints are a result of crumbling and decaying societies. They cling to what once was, rather than trying to progress onward to Socialism.

        Reactionaries are wrong, of course, but the origin of these viewpoints currently is from Capitalism’s failures.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        It makes all the sense in the world. Horrible people want to be in power. So they market themselves as the just the strong man you need to deal with these problems. No problems? well then they just create them. There isn’t anything stopping them from just lying about where the problems came from, so it turns into a self licking ice cream cone.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          So they market themselves as the just the strong man you need to deal with these problems

          Without ever specifying how they’re planning on fixing those problems.

          And more often than not, the problems they claim to be able to deal with were not anything people were thinking about until that same candidate told them they should be concerned about it.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      in stress, they will always vote conservative to ensure their own survival

      That isn’t a safe bet, though.

      The cornerstone of the conservative M-O is withdrawal of services and opportunities for the 99%. Sure, this sticks it to immigrants, but only because it shafts everyone but the rich.

      And when those services go away - healthcare, unemployment protection, programmes sponsoring training so people can get back to paying tax sooner - they never come back under this administration. It’s left as the sole focus of the fools who follow them and have to stoch a country back together out of the unmaintained underpowered mess of a system the elitist scum left them with.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        Of course it’s not a safe bet, that’s why it’s based in fear. That’s how it’s always been.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        What the elites didn’t sell to themselves for a song at any rate. That’s the other part of it, they raid the government for parts and then turn it into a profit service no matter how many people they end up killing.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    In the EU.

    In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines, with the remainder being down to race, education, wealth and urbanness, which actually makes me think what’s going on in Europe is a somewhat unrelated phenomenon.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines,

      Not as much as the “lol boomers” crowd would have you believe.

      There’s a lot more <50 at Trump’s rallies than >60.

      Same with the Jan6 traitors. Lots of them were <40

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        Jan 6 guys are nothing like a representative sample. Trailer park grandpa couldn’t show up to that for multiple reasons. Even then, I’d guess a median age of 45 just based on the videos. The shaman guy was like 32 and he was kind of a baby.

        I know less about normal Trump rallies, but I don’t really need to because there’s actual polling to rely on. MAGA youth exist, but they’re underrepresented and even more heavily poor, white, uneducated and rural. Meanwhile, in Europe, there’s basically no correlation. Young and old alike support AfD about the same.

        What we have on this continent is definitely fascism, fueled by pure, barely-directed hate and hostile to democracy. In Europe, I wonder if it’s more of a reversion to Japan-like policy, which might have been more natural for these ancient kingdoms all along. That’s just a wild guess, but I hope so, because I like democracy.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          30 days ago

          From your first link:

          Across the country, small business owners who attended the pro-Trump event are facing backlash

          That gives me some small measure of hope for the future.

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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    just proves that manipulation works, and that everyone being online on "smart"phones (== owner dumber on average) has made it so much easier to reach them, and social media is giving the algorithms the crucial information on how best to manipulate each individual. I hate it.

  • cum@lemmy.cafe
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    Gen Z/Millennials/Boomers are all terms to describe generations specifically in just America. Why are they being used when this article is talking about the EU?