German teenagers and young adults find themselves increasingly unsatisfied and likely to vote for the far right, according to a survey. Fears about prosperity are highlighted as a possible cause.
Young people are more likely to vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) than previously, a study on Tuesday showed.
Authors of the “Youth in Germany 2024” study said that under-30s were increasingly disgruntled with their social and economic situation, and that fears about future prosperity were driving a shift to the right.
The AfD’s signature issue is a hard-line anti-immigration stance, and the data showed that migration was among young people’s main concerns.
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The online study, conducted in January and February, found that young people were becoming increasingly dissatisfied, especially with their social and economic situation, compared with previous years.
After the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors said economic and political worries for example due to inflation, high rents, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East or the division of society had taken center stage.
After living in left and right states for many years, there is a stupid amount of common ground over stuff like solar, right to repair, rent control and housing, railway infrastructure, healthcare costs, quality careers and compensation, education costs and more.
We might see something like solar for different reasons (climate change vs. energy independence), but there’s ways of rephrasing a solution to have it both ways.
The only thing that really seems to get in the way are petty online disagreements that then snowball into stuff like accusing people of shitting in litterboxes, hypothesising that gender diverse people started an international war or accusing people of genocide because their underwear was just revealed to be made in a super repressive country. That’s the noise that prevents us from getting shit like bullet trains in or healthcare costs drawn down.
Even in more controversial things like abortion there are a large number of people that agree on the same thing on both sides. Once you throw out divisive labels like “pro-life” or “pro-choice” and look at the specifics, you find that it’s not really a 2 sided issue at all: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions