WARSAW — The recent European elections were the first time Germany allowed 16 year-olds to vote for the European Parliament. While pundits predicted that the young voters would be a boon for leftist and environmental candidates, it was a very different political lineup that cashed in: the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Though it notably reached unprecedented levels of success in the June 9 vote among all age groups, one of its biggest areas of growth was among young voters.
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From the last EU elections in 2019, AfD notched a 220% increase in support among young voters, almost equal to the support received by the German center-right, according to German daily Deutsche Welle.
But these strong results among young people were not always expected, even from AfD leadership itself. In 2018, when Germany was deciding on whether to allow 16 year-olds to vote in the European elections, the party claimed that this would increase support for the Left, the Social Democrats, and the Greens.
But it is hardly limited to Germany. Young voters across the West, long associated with progressive, liberal values, are leaning not just right — but far right. What gives? Unpacking results and polling numbers from Germany and Poland to France and the U.S. reveals that it is as much about tactics as ideology.
TikTok growth and bans
Once the German voting age decision was finalized, AfD kicked into action, launching intensified campaigns on social media, most prominently on TikTok and Instagram, aimed at garnering support from younger voters.
On TikTok specifically, the far-right party reaches as many young people as every other party combined, reports Deutsche Welle. Chief among the party’s online spokespeople is European Member of Parliament Maximilian Krah, who was banned from making formal campaign appearances after telling Italian newspaper La Repubblica that not all members of the SS were bad.
Krah’s online content, which promoted the idea of the “Great Replacement” theory, a white supremacist idea alleging that white Europeans are being replaced by people of non-white origin, was restricted for 90 days for spreading conspiracy theories.
But his other videos, which include restrictive notions of gender roles, and notably, advocacy for decreased military support to Ukraine, remain up and continue to garner attention.
"The war in Ukraine is not your war. Zelensky is not your president," Krah said in a TikTok video, "But this is costing you money and you are running the risk that Germany gets dragged into this war”.
Young women in Poland tilt right
While Poland’s latest Parliamentary elections signaled the defeat of eight years of Law and Justice (PiS) party rule, and the coming to power of an opposition coalition made up of left and center-right leadership, the European elections saw a surge in the far-right Konfederacja party, who finished third behind the two major parties and with 12% of the total vote share.
Among young people, their growth was especially significant, with the far-right party finishing first among young voters, and performing better than the Left among women.
Braun was infamous for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories
This rise is especially notable given PiS’s underperformance with young voters, only 14.9% of which voted for the populist-right party in last November’s elections. By contrast, 30% of voters 18-29 chose Konfederacja in the European elections.
Among the members of Konfederacja who will be inaugurated to the European Parliament in mid-July is Grzegorz Braun, who made international headlines after using a fire extinguisher to put out a Hanukkah menorah during a celebration in Warsaw’s parliament last year.
Previously, Braun was infamous for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for assaulting and interrupting the speech of Polish-Canadian Holocaust scholar Jan Grabowski, telling him to “please leave Poland”.
Like their German ideological companions, Polish far-right leaders, including figurehead Slawomir Mentzen, have taken to social media in order to reach younger cohorts of voters. Mentzen currently has nearly 860,000 followers on TikTok, more than any other Polish politician.
Apathy on the left
Warsaw University political scientist Rafał Chwedoruk tells Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza that above all, Konfederacja has become the party for protest votes.
“The high level of support for Konfederacja… is more of a classic reaction to recent difficult situations, rather than a broader ideological shift in the younger generation,” he says, citing the war in Ukraine next door and debates surrounding immigration as potential indicators.
But rather than a full-on rightward shift, some experts argue that a lack of action among parties in power is to blame for apathy and lower voter turnout on the left and center.
“The election results don’t show that young women stopped being left-wing”, sociologist Elzbieta Korolczuk tells Polish weekly Newsweek Polska, “just that a large portion of those who voted for the Left in 2023 stayed home.”
A 28-year-old at the head of France's far-right
France's far right has another way to reach young voters: the new face of the National Rally party is a charismatic 28 year-old named Jordan Bardella.
According to French broadcaster BFMTV, 32% of the youth vote in the EU elections went to the far-right. And now that President Emmanuel Macron has called snap parliamentary elections after his centrist party's dismal European results, Bardella has been put forward as a potential new prime minister.
Having grown up to parents of Italian and Algerian descent in the poor area of Seine-Saint-Denis, northeast of Paris, Bardella’s appeal to some may rest not only in his young age, but also in his comparatively modest background and status as a university dropout.
His videos are entertainment as much as they are indoctrination.
“He has not come through the established pathway”, Dr. Joseph Downing, a senior lecturer at Aston University in the UK who specializes in French politics, tells France24, “I think that is something that impresses a lot upon both young and old French people.”
Memes and migration
But in spite of the mythology he has managed to build up, Bardells’s background was far from impoverished. His father ran a successful business, and rather than attending his local public high school, Bardella went to a semi-private Catholic school instead, the “only establishment in Saint-Denis where a teacher was not at risk of having a chair thrown at their head”, he told French daily Le Monde.
His promises to disaffected youth include curbs on immigration, cut France’s contributions to the EU budget, and to not send troops or missiles that could be used to strike Russian targets to Ukraine.
As a young person who himself joined the far-right RN party at the age of 16, Bardella has been using social media to present himself and his ideas to young people, who are increasingly fed up with the higher cost of living and an ongoing housing crisis. Bardella boasts 1.6 million TikTok followers.
Rather than strictly political content, his videos make use of popular internet memes and formats, making them as much entertainment as they are indoctrination.
Following his success ahead of the European Parliament, Bardella was chosen as the National Rally’s candidate for Prime Minister. Should the far-right emerge victorious in July’s snap elections, Bardella will replace Macron ally Gabriel Attal in the position.
Across the Atlantic, disaffection grows
As the November elections loom in the United States, the votes of young people will be a key factor. Long a reliable source of votes for the Democratic Party, the main issue has been their significantly lower turnout compared to other demographics. This year, however, even higher turnout might not be able to create more youth support for current President Joe Biden.
With Trump, 78, and Biden, 81, having experienced completely different lived realities to the younger voters they will be courting, is it any surprise that these voters may stay home?
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in March showed Americans aged 18-29 favoring Biden over Trump by just 3 percentage points - 29% to 26% - with the rest favoring another candidate or unsure of who, if anyone, would get their vote.
Nearly half of young Americans are dissatisfied with the choice of candidates.
Like in Poland, this may mean that right-wing support from youth during the elections may stem from the fact that disaffected left and centrist voters do not show up, leaving the majority of votes for Trump.
On the left, this year’s Democratic National Convention, being held in Chicago, may harken back to 1968, where popular protest movements clashed with mainstream politicians.
Protest movements surrounding Biden’s support for Israel on college campuses and beyond have shown the increasing frustrations with his foreign policy. Biden’s lowest approval rating is currently his handling of Israel's actions in Gaza, with 71% of all Americans polled disapproving of his actions.
Among those under 35 and Democrats, this disapproval rises to 81%. According to a CNN poll, almost half of all young Americans are dissatisfied with the choice of candidates in the upcoming presidential elections, meaning that even if they will be voting, it may not convert into long-term political engagement..
While the right-wing surge in America may not be driven by a youth-led wave, stark levels of apathy may be providing right-wing leadership with the opportunity to capitalize.