Why Young Europeans are Further Right than Brits and Americans

this video was brought to you by brilliant in most of the developed world it's long been accepted as a truism that people start off left wing when they're young and gradually get more right-wing as they get older in English-speaking countries like the UK and the US young people are actually becoming more left-wing in their youth and staying left-wing for longer however in much of Europe the reverse seems to be happening across the EU right-wing parties are performing conspicuously well with young people when we were doing research for our Finland elections explainer which came out on Tuesday we noticed that according to polling the Nationalist Finn's party was the most popular party among 18 to 29 year olds with 26 percent of the vote eight points ahead of the second-placed greens it's not just Finland either young people seem pretty keen on right-wing parties in places like France Italy and Sweden to name just a few so in this video we thought we'd take a look at how young Europeans have shifted to the right how this compares to countries like the US and the UK and try our best to figure out why this might be happening [Music] let's start by looking at the places where young Europeans are moving right as we mentioned in the intro finland's neighbor Sweden has shown signs of this phenomenon too in 2022 the right-wing Sweden Democrats won 22 percent of Voters aged 18 to 21. up from 12 in 2018. it's a similar story in Italy where the ruling right wing Fratelli d'Italia are remarkably popular with young people a technique poll from just before last year's election found that Maloney's party were the most popular party among 18 to 21 year olds with 23 support closely followed by another right-wing party lager on 22 in Germany at the 2021 Saxony arnhaltz Regional elections the far-right afd when a plurality of Voters in every age bracket from 18 to 44. while the afd performed pretty badly among young people at the federal elections the most popular party for the first time voters were actually the economically right-wing pro-business fdp in France young people generally preferred Le Pen to macron who fared best with pensioners and over 50s now it's important not to overstate this in France for example while Le Pen did better than macron their preferred candidate was still Jean-Luc melanchon a left-wing Firebrand who now heads up the left-wing noobs coalition similarly while the FTP did well amongst first-time voters in Germany they were only a percentage Point ahead of the greens he it's also worth saying that this isn't an entirely new phenomenon in the 2010s many central European right-wing parties became remarkably popular with young people and first-time voters Poland's Law And Justice party was by far and away the most popular choice for first-time voters in 2014 garnering roughly a third of the vote in Hungary which has been led by Auburn's right-wing fidesh party for over a decade polling from 2015 found that a plurality of students wanted to vote for jobic a political party even further white than fidesh in Slovakia's 2016 elections 24 of first-time voters voted for the People's Party a far-right group that won just eight percent of the vote across Slovakia as a whole nonetheless this was previously mostly essential European phenomenon and the trend has definitely accelerated in recent years it's also difficult to square with what's happening in anglophone countries like the UK the US and even Australia where young people are getting more and more left-wing in both the U.S and UK for example Millennials are actually getting more left-wing as time goes on before the 2019 general election in the UK yougov gave labor a 43-point lead among voters aged 18 to 24 and a 24-point lead amongst voters aged 25 to 34 and estimated that the chance of someone voting conservative in 2019 increased by about nine points with every 10 years of age young Australians also deserted Scott Morrison's Coalition party at last year's elections and Young Americans were significantly more likely to vote Democrat at last year's midterms especially young women in most political commentary this phenomenon is considered relatively unsurprising after all gen Z and Millennials are pretty socially liberal and likely to be poorer than their parents so why would they vote for small C conservatives with Antiquated social views offering more of the same so what's going on here why are young Europeans shifting right unlike their Anglo counterparts well no one knows for sure but there are three possible explanations first Europeans are far more moralistic than their UK and American counterparts and far more likely to view poverty as a choice young Europeans are actually more conservative in this respect than previous generations oecd polling from 2018 found that 18 to 29 year olds across Europe were more likely than older generations to attribute poverty to quote laziness or lack of willpower this isn't the same in the UK or the us where the discourse around racial and social justice has made young people more not less favorable to wealth redistribution second young Europeans are generally more anti-immigration while young Europeans are more likely to think that immigration is a good thing than older Generations they strongly prefer EU over non-eu immigration and are about as likely as previous generations to support quote additional measures to fight illegal immigration in fact until last year young Europeans put immigration as the most important problem in the EU ahead of the environment last year the environment and immigration would joint top as the most important problem with 30 percent of young Europeans putting each in their top three again this is a stark contrast to the US and the UK in the U.S only 20 percent of Americans under the age of 35 were in favor of Trump's wall on the Mexican border in the UK young people are far more pro-immigration than their parents and immigration hasn't been top of their concerns since 2015. third it might have something to do with Europe's political systems in part because they're representative rather than majoritarian Europe's political systems are now more pluralistic than the US and the UK in other words Europeans usually have multiple parties to choose from whereas in the U.S or the UK there are only two real options the right-wing parties that young Europeans like usually have an anti-establishment Bend and it might just be that young people think the current system isn't working so vote for the most anti-establishment party out there in Europe that might be a new right-wing startup but in the UK or the US there's not really a viable anti-establishment option so young Brits and Americans just have to settle for labor or the Democrats so that's three possible reasons young European voters are more right-wing than their anglophone counterparts obviously it's possible we've missed another possible reason so if you can think of any more please leave a comment down below but with elections taking place across Europe all the time there were three last weekend alone it's worth seeing how young voters change over the next weeks days and even minutes but while we're waiting it only takes a few minutes every day to massively improve your skills and Safeguard your career against artificial intelligence by investing in your human intelligence and that's where brilliant.org comes in brilliant.org is the best way to learn maths and computer science in a fun and interactive way brilliant has thousands of lessons from foundational and advanced maths to AI data science neural networks decision making and more with new lessons added monthly that logical decision-making course is super interesting too using principles for maths and science to help aid how you reach your own decisions not naming names but maybe some politicians need a brilliant account anyway you can try everything brilliant has to offer free for a full 30 Days by clicking the link 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Channel: TLDR News EU

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Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023