Youth, between the far right and anti-fascism

For a long time, young people had been the natural reserve of progressive causes: anti-fascism, feminism, environmentalism, and social rights. Today, that certainty has cracked. In the new generations, we see great polarization. Faced with far-right demonstrations—with a large presence of young people—there are anti-fascist protests led by other young people. In any case, one cannot underestimate the fact that a significant part of this generation is moving closer to the far right and is doing so, moreover, in a growing manner. This polarization—which has been perceived in Madrid during the days of the visit of the Argentine president, Javier Milei; in the Balearic Islands during the presence of the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal; in France and in Italy, among other European countries—demonstrates that youth do not think with a single voice. What they do share, however, is something deeper: malaise.

Young people have reasons to be angry. They are a generation that has grown up with the 2008 crisis, with job insecurity, and with the feeling that studying, training, and working no longer guarantees the ability to build an autonomous life. In the Balearic Islands, this frustration has a particularly harsh expression due to the fact that housing has become an inaccessible asset for the vast majority of young people on islands that endure tourist saturation, the fuel for much of the social tension. It is quite legitimate for them to be angry. The problem is who capitalizes on this malaise and where they lead it.

The far right offers a response as simple as it is dangerous to problems that are extraordinarily complex: for almost all the evils that affect you, the culprit is the immigrant; if your salary does not allow you to emancipate yourself, someone else has taken what belongs to you; if the system does not work, an iron fist is needed; if institutions fail, authoritarianism is better. Social networks play a decisive role in this. Vox has learned to speak the language of Generation Z: short, provocative, emotional, and easy-to-share messages. From here arises the disturbing paradox, because young people who have not known Francoism are claiming Franco. Not necessarily because they know or share the dictatorship, but because its symbols reach them out of context, as an aesthetic of rebellion against the system.

The left should take note of this. It is not enough to explain to young people that they are wrong to vote for the far right. We must give them reasons again to believe that politics can improve their lives. Affordable housing, decent wages, public services, emancipation, rights, equality, and a possible future are also anti-fascist politics. Young people have always wanted to change the world, and now it is time for everyone, young and not so young, to want to change it without this meaning going backwards.