Why Young Europeans are Further Right than Brits and Americans

Young Europeans are seemingly getting more right wing - and at a much faster rate than Americans or Brits. So in this video we'll explain how Gen-Z Europeans are shifting right and try our best to figure out why this might be happening.

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0:00 Introduction
1:14 Where is this Happening?
3:35 Compared to US, UK & Australia
4:51 Possible Explanations

[francescofabani]

I think you might have overlooked an important point: continental right wing parties are far less economically conservative than the anglo-american ones. Take Italy as an example: Fratelli d'Italia is a far right party if we talk about civil rights or immigration, but they are more of a "social right party" from an economic point of view.

[kurolotus]

There is also phenomena, at least in Finland, that men increasingly vote for right-wing parties and women vote for left-wing parties. This can be best observed by looking at 'the newer' options, the Greens and the Finns.

[lukas]

Right wing in Europe is mostly about the extreme migration waves and the correlation with increased crime rates. But where I live also the unemployement rates and the money that is lost to this.

[ohhhSmooth]

Another aspect is, that Europe used to consist of largely homogeneous societies. In the Last 30 years we had unprecedented levels of immigration, which, here in Austria and Germany at least, used to be an absolute taboo-topic in my parents generation.

Since 2015 migration has reached a point where it can no longer be ignored and many young people feel it is an issue that needs to be adressed.

[KrzysztofBob]

It boils down to anti establishment. Like you said, whatever we have now, clearly isn’t working, so young people naturally gravitate towards whoever happens to be on the opposite side of political spectrum.

[marvelousmoostacheman]

I think a big difference is that the GOP and Tories don't exactly have an economic program to support young people and just keep subsidizing old people all the time while telling the young that they "should pull themselves up by their bootstraps". Contrast this with Marine Le Pen for example who proposed that everyone under 30 should be tax-exempt.

[iknet]

Migration being seen as the most important issue is probably not due to right wing opinions, but rather the fact that it's a topic on both sides of the spectrum (left wing: people dying in the mediterranean / right wing: social systems imploding and criminality)

[nekhumonta]

A reason might be that immigrants don't adapt as well in non-English speaking countries. Young people often learn English just by being on the internet a lot. For most smaller languages that's not the case. Third or fourth generation immigrants often still speak with a heavy accent and feel more connected with a country they've never lived in themselves. They watch tv from the homeland and only hang out with other people from their community instead of engaging with locals.

[Mastadex]

The "poverty is a choice" thing could be (or partly) explained by the fact they already have good social programs, mostly-free university, etc. As opposed to the US, where access to education has a financial barrier.

[SuperNovaJinckUFO]

It's worth noting that a lot of the "right wing" European parties are left wing on many issues, by American and British standards.

[sonnymetten]

Honestly I think immigration is the biggest problem. There are so many immigrants here coming from hyperconservative and religious cultures and they keep living in those ideologies here. And the European left wing parties don't take a strong stance against that. So we need to vote European right wing parties to protect our own progressive culture free of religion. As soon as immigration is properly regulated I'm sure young Europeans will massively vote left again.

[kayzenl]

Because we are tired to not feel at home in our own country so yeah, we fight back. We are not lollipop english or American “values” of anybody everywhere.
We want to keep our community, our people our traditions our culture.

[randomcon]

I think there is a glaring problem on this topic… what is “right wing”? Economically right wing or socially right wing? Also, as someone pointed out in the comment section, what is considered right wing in Europe can still be very left wing by Uk, and specially american, standards. The word “right wing” really encompasses a whole lot of things that can mean very different things to different people depending on where they are.

[vere]

I think the problem is, that americans and brits are mixing right wing with conservatism and left wing with liberalism. But in europe, we have right wing liberals, right wing conservatives, left wing conservatives (Communists) and left wing liberals. And from each political direction we have multiple parties. For example, we have 3 left wing parties variants, and people in election choose how much "left wing" should the government be. If they want to be governed by more radical or more moderate left wing leaning party.

[Luthies]

Don't know how it is in other countries, but in Finland social media, and especially TikTok is a major reason for the popularity of the Finns party. Whole platform is built around short videos without the need to go into any depth about your policy arguments so it works perfectly for a populist party.

[smti]

I can speak for Germany: Mostly they moved right because being sick of left and nearly all parties look the same if it comes to topics like migration. The government was a coalation of 3 parties with minorities of voters, so both they had many conflicts inside and also dictated segments of the minority-agendas to a majority. The worse thing is, all the bad things the government did, they did not show any regret or idea to change their ways, even when the people weren asked and it was clear they are unhappy.

[vladimirvasek]

If you included Central/Eastern Europe another explanation is the disdain for communism among most youths and associating it with left-wing in general (at least here in CZ).

[saundyuk]

I think you're forgetting that European youth have (in most EU countries) grown up living with left wing governments that have been unable to do anything about massive youth unemployment issues (especially in the southern nations) coupled with unaffordable housing and wage stagnation. They also view immigration as direct competition in an environment where they are already struggling to get their feet on the employment and housing ladders - which is why it's a hot topic for them lately.

Freedom of movement is great if you're a wealthy tourist. It's an absolute nightmare if you're just starting a career in an environment where your elders would rather hire someone from a poorer EU country willing to work for less, instead of paying you a fair wage or providing you with training to become as productive as a cheaper imported workforce.

[MBBurchette]

The more social media influences where people source their access to news, the more extreme their politics will tend to become.
Even as a centrist with cross cutting views, I can recognize when this happens based on news stories I watch/read.
Forcing people to actively engage with viewpoints they disagree with will not work, as it not only negatively affects the bottom line of Google/FB/Twitter/etc, but also the blood pressure of the individual seeking out those viewpoints.

[petrmiros]

Italy, France and Sweden. You literally named 3 countries hit hardest by 2015 muslim immigration. I wonder if there is some correlation. Also, young people are not "moving left", they are conditioned to "become left" by media and education system.