Fri 14 Jun 2024 11:00 EST
FIGHTING PRECARITY: Young people, all around the world, are abandoning mainstream, a sign that their anxieties are not being heard.
That far-right parties fared well in the European elections came as no surprise. Surveys had consistently foretold their triumph. The populist right has been on the rise in Europe for the past two decades. The 2024’s vote is a natural culmination of a long trend.
We are witnessing something new: the first signs of a populist insurrection of the young. In most countries, voters under 30 are giving their support to far-right parties such as Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, Rassemblement National in France, Vox in Spain, the Brothers of Italy, Chega in Portugal, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the Finns party in Finland and so on. This is in stark contrast with the previous trend when young voters were overwhelmingly backing Green parties.
Why this dramatic change of heart?
Young people around the world are increasingly miserable and restless. The 2024 World Happiness Report signalled that young people are currently unhappier than older generations. While a visible minority of the young voters are mobilising against global warming and far-away wars, long-standing sources of youngsters’ angst and outrage and most of the silent majority of our youth seem to be troubled by the same quality-of-life concerns that keep their elders awake at night. Reportedly, the rising cost of living is their top concern, followed by the threat of poverty and social exclusion.
But in this case, why not vote for the left?
Rising support for the far right is all the stranger because surveys indicate that the left’s trademark themes of social and economic justice are now more important for voters than the far-right’s flagship issue: immigration. The left’s agenda, combining cultural liberalism with social justice and care for the environment, would seem to respond to many young people’s concerns. Yet Europe’s youth are abandoning left-leaning parties. A similar shift is at play in the United States and Canada. In a formidable reversal of the trend of young people in the US and Canada supporting the Democratic and Liberal party, Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre are gaining support among young voters.
What ails the young is a novel concern, economic uncertainty, or rather “livelihood insecurity”. If older people are living in fear of job loss, younger generations fear they will never land a job, no matter how many master’s degrees they might invest money, effort and hope in. Fears about future is driving a shift to the right. The exasperation of poverty is fostering a desire for radical change and support for the political left, but fear of loss of social status nourishes conservative instincts for stability and safety. There is also something else at play here: young people do not navigate politics with the same ideological compass that their parents and grandparents have been using, with arrows pointing either to the left pole of cultural liberalism and social justice or the right pole of cultural traditionalism and economic freedom.
So, has World’s youth turned reactionary?
Let us not rush to this conclusion just yet. For now, all we can glean from the populist revolt of the young is that the political mainstream is not providing satisfying answers to their grievances. The left’s promises for inclusive prosperity are not so convincing when weighed against the social cost of the green transition. The moderate right’s promises for fulfilling lives of professional achievement and economic comfort are less believable when weighed against a job market of insecure employment. It is the populism of the political centre, with its facile and implausible answers, that may be fuelling the rightful rage of the young. It is clear, then, what the adults need to do, square the circle of stable livelihoods, ecological sustainability and cultural freedoms for all. If no such plan exists, young people in the World will vote for the next best thing, for forces that tell them how to preserve what they already have, at the risk of losing who they would like to be.
Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.
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