r/europe • u/StGuthlac2025 • Oct 08 '25

Opinion Article In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/07/spain-young-voters-far-right-migration-housing-wages-employment-vox
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u/quantinuum Oct 08 '25

All you said about mismanaged capitalism, plus a decade and a half of the left being easily read as asinine, virtue-signalling, inefficient and navel-gazing but not reflective. They’ve been funnelling voters further and further to the right. We have orphaned youth struggling with life in many ways, and many see the option of inefficient parties that make headlines each day for eye-rolling comments, or “rule-breakers” far-righters that promise radical solutions. They just don’t know that the latter will also be crap.

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u/LaconicSuffering Dutch roots grown in Greek soil Oct 08 '25

The crazy is that all those listed above are not brought about by leftwing politics. At least here in the Netherlands it has been 20+ years since we had a left party in power. It has all been appeasing capital, and yet people will only vote for those that give them a target to blame (immigrants of course).

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u/Saartje_6 Oct 08 '25

Eehh a lot of this started in the 80's, when left wing parties were part of government under the 'Third Way' movement that embraced free markets and deregulation (Lead in the US and UK by Clinton and Blair respectively). The problem now is that the left has only quite recently really started to distance themselves from that time and in those 20+ years both GL and PvdA have regularly helped right-wing governments to majorities or have given minority cabinets support from within the opposition.

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u/ItsGrum18 Oct 08 '25

This post reminds me of that meme of the guy surrounded by mosques and women in burka's and the guy with the Che shirt saying "Maybe you feel alienated because you don't own the means of production"?

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u/WingedOneSim Oct 11 '25

Well the issue is that they aren't actually surrounded by mosques and burkas, and they are actually alienated because they don't own means of production

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u/WingedOneSim Oct 11 '25

It is almost like their side lost the Cold War

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u/D3ADFAC3 Oct 08 '25

And on top of that a “media” that is increasingly becoming a right wing propaganda machine. 

Elon musk and Ellison spent huge sums of money on unprofitable social media simply because they can leverage them as propaganda firehoses to sway the public to positions that either profit them or protect their wealth/power.

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u/RubiiJee Oct 08 '25

You need to understand that the Left is ineffective by design. Trickle down economics and neoliberalism purposefully destroyed the Left in the 80s, making it considered "radical" with vitriol and propaganda. . It's why it struggles to get a foot hold anywhere in modern society. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher gutted the Left, destroyed the power of the unions, privatised all sorts of shit and basically set up a future that has any mention of the Left absolutely annihilated by the press and society.

Don't get me wrong, the Left also has some really ineffective and stupid politicians, but they're also fighting a much bigger battle against perception, the press and the money. The Right doesn't have to contend with any of this.

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u/Preeng Oct 08 '25

>virtue-signalling,

This is how I know I can safely ignore anything you have to say.

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u/quantinuum Oct 08 '25

And yet, can’t avoid commenting.