Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?
Josh is 24 years old and works as a carer. It’s not easy work, but he prefers it to his old job in a supermarket: most of his clients are elderly and “just want someone there with them, because they’re lonely”. In his spare time Josh used to be into boxing. But lately he’s got into politics instead.
Like many of his gen Z contemporaries, he’s thoroughly disillusioned with the mainstream kind. “The two parties that have been in power for 100-plus years have done nothing. The economy’s a mess,” he scoffs. But if he sounds like the kind of anti-establishment young person who once rallied to the radical left, Josh’s frustration has taken him in another direction. An ardent leaver in his teens, who backed Boris Johnson in 2019, he now belongs to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Yeah, he “sounds kind of anti-establishment.” The problem with vibes-based politics, as many have discovered throughout history, is that it’s just perfect for con men.
I really don’t get these people. This guy sounds and looks as phoney as they come. How dumb do you have to be to fall for his act?
They provide simple answers to their problems. Easy scapegoats. My ex thought highly of Farridge, Yaxley Lenton, etc. He thought Trump wasn’t really racist, but was playing some kind of 4D chess to get the racist vote so he could drain the swamp.
My ex was pretty intelligent when it came to other things, but he fell for every lie coming out these grifters’ mouths.
One thing that’s significant: he still uses Facebook. Social media amplifes the right. It’s weird how on a completely non political video in incognito mode, YouTube will dish up right wing videos. You can watch one seemingly innocuous video and the next thing, you’ll get flooded with more and more extreme right content and before you know it, you’re far right.
It’s clear that my ex, and another colleague I had who’s into the right, parrot the same talking points they see on twitter and Facebook (classic one was parroting Musk’s civil war predictions during the Southport riots). They’re both anti establishment, without realising the people they admire ARE as establishment as they get.
I don’t ’get these people’ either. But clearly, popularist politicians everywhere do get them. All their lives they’ve heard promises from the ‘traditional’ left and right wing parties that have made little impact on their daily lives that they can see. They’re still in a terrible job, still hearing the media rattling on about how terrible things are, etc.
So they’re ripe for the taking when someone comes along, tells them that the promises they heard from others are trash, that this new person knows who or what is really to blame, and luckily. It’s a group that’s easy to scapegoat and ‘other’.
That’s valid. I vastly simplified things I know, and there’s lots I don’t understand about it. People want to feel heard and they aren’t getting that from most of the traditional political parties.
I’ve voted both Labour and (in the past) conservative in my time and I think both parties are currently guilty of taking a lot of things and a lot of people for granted who expect better.
Where’s the left-leaning equivalent?
The status quo is bad so of course people are going to gravitate towards things that go contrary to the establishment. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Arrested for protesting, keeping their head down, or trying to live their life outside of mainstream capitalist society is my guess.
The left have been the targets of successive governments and vested interests, in most countries, for over 100 years. No wonder it’s dead. Not to mention the infighting. Some of which I’m sure is natural but some of which will be instigated by those same governments and vested interests.
We’re just passing on our ideals through upbringing, storytelling and kindness, like we always have. These are powerful tools.
Edit to add: we’re also a lot sexier.
I feel like a lot of people look at a bad system and go “We should change!” and then accept any change. But that’s stupid. If you have a machine that often breaks down, yeah you should change that. But you shouldn’t replace it with a machine that shoots rusty nails out every couple minutes while filling the room with toxic gas. Yeah, that’s a change, but a change for the worse.
Or like if you realize you got on the wrong train. You should change because you don’t want to go where this one is going. But don’t go on an express train going to the same wrong place!
There was Corbyn, who, after his antisemitism judgment, has been deplatformed by the mainstream media, not to mention repellent, self-serving tankies like Galloway. There was a media-savvy “dirtbag left” (think Russell Brand, in his sex-god-Che-Guevara era), though for some reason they keep turning fash as soon as it gets expedient, and are the opposite of a solution here.
The brexit wasn’t enough?
Now that the us is dropping out, the EU would really benefit from a strong collaboration with UK.
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