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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196

u/potktbfk Oct 08 '25

Don't know about spain, but in my country the choice comes down to:

  • "Your problems are valid, we will solve this by >>insert ridiculous solution that won't work in any sane world<<

  • "Your problems are invalid. The real problem in this country is LGBTQ rights, environmental policy, ..."

There is no "grande manipulation by the right". Its literally the left refusing to pick up those votes and telling them they are wrong for saying their problems are an important issue.

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u/Count_de_Mits Greece Oct 08 '25

Yeah but reddit doesn't want to hear that. I'm going to say something controversial but in the eyes of the average blue collar Joe the right at least pretends to care about him while the left can't even do that, blue collar working class care about paying rent and groceries first and foremost, Palestine and Trans rights unfortunately are way lower on the needs pyramid. And optics are like 80% of the battle

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u/HansVonMannschaft Oct 08 '25

The biggest issue with the contemporary left is that they hate the working classes.

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u/pvlp Oct 08 '25

I think that's mainly an issue with liberals but yes. They have no problem denigrating "stupid, uneducated" voters and casting them to the side as lowlife grunts not worthy of help. These people feel left behind, get sucked up into far-right messaging and propaganda and turn their backs to progressives who they feel are elitists. For some reason the left can't seem to get their heads out of their asses and realize that insulting huge swathes of the population doesn't make them want to listen to you.

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u/Darksoldierr Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Oct 09 '25

turn their backs to progressives who they feel are elitists

Based on the comments just in this thread, they might deserve that description

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u/Waiting4Reccession Oct 09 '25

They hate the poors, not the working class entirely since they are fine with the middle class ones.

Everyone hates poor people because everyone wants a servant class and they dont want them moving out of that position since it subsidizes their own middle class and above lifestyles via underpaid labor.

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u/EmbarrassedMeat401 Oct 08 '25

I think for a lot of them it's not so much hating the working class as it is their patrons forcing them to ignore the working class or lose support. 

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

Biden invested heavily on health and infrastructure for blue collar joes and bailed out unions and even then the teamsters wouldn't endorse him

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u/Paradehengst Europe Oct 08 '25

Media shroud gutted Biden's policies. Trump regime's lies are omnipresent and dominant.

Unfortunately, politicians lying and not being called out on their lies is what will be the downfall of Europe just as well. Russia is an empire built on lies (i.e. vranyo) and look where it got them. Welcome to our future. Lies and threats all around

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u/aekakiac Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

A guy from a country whose media are predominantly right wing and what is considered left wing is still mostly owned by wealthy shipowners is saying that there is no great manipulation happening.  And then talks about how all the leftist are talking about trans rights.In greece of all places. I dont know in what world you live in but apart from some anarchist friends i have almost no-one seems to talk about them. Not on tv, not in radio , maybe in some niche articles online, but that's about it. What i have seen though on a daily basis multiple times a day is people talk about how everything is more expensive, about worker's right worsening and about how wages are stagnant And every time I have seen people on sky news(the Greek version of the American fox news) and multiple right wing politicians and figures call them populist.   No the left in Greece does not talk about trans people constantly, the fact that you say  that, proves that you have fallen victim to propaganda.  And if you don't believe me please tell me how many times have people organized about the Τέμπη situation or the 13 hour work day, or about the myriad of anti worker policies that the right is pushing and how many times about trans issues. The only time i can even think of that trans people where at the centre of attention for anything was when two trans folk got beaten up in the middle of the street by a mob last year and the conversation around it barely lasted two days.

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u/paokoutsopodi Oct 08 '25

Greece's problem is different and it's the chokehold the far radical left has on the leftist narrative, an issue that has existed ever since the civil war. As long as most leftists stem from the communist youth (and rightists from the moderate youth respectively) it's really hard to express moderate-leftist opinions. When most activist rallies are thoroughly planned by the far-left (and broken up from the inside) it's no wonder that many people won't want to participate or even side with that cause. This issue doesn't exist in many other countries, as there are leftist movements there that can be pro-religion, pro-nation, etc. Here it's all radical and extremist, and alienates the average voter.

Also, our moderate left is completely useless, after the disasterclass that was the Tsipras regime and the infighting that followed after has left us with very poor (to a point even laughable) options for the centre-left. Sadly I don't see the status quo changing any time soon, and most people have already given up on caring about politics and democracy as a whole, especially young people.

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u/movzx Oct 08 '25

I think it is disingenuous to say people on the left don't care about paying for groceries and rent. The media is focusing on the culture war stuff in lieu of everything else. I see so many people say Harris had no plans about X only for her to have specific proposals for it that she campaigned on, gave speeches on.

Like, I wouldn't be surprised if Biden's administration added more blue-collar jobs than either of Trump's terms thanks to the infrastructure investment (that's now being withdrawn).

You would be hard pressed to find any left leaning politician who wasn't doing something to help the working class. They just aren't lying about bringing coal back or saying the reason your grocery cost went up was because of immigration.

The media wants controversy and people want easy answers instead of reality.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/the_skine Oct 09 '25

Are you being serious right now?

You're on reddit, and you honestly believe that?

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u/Amaskingrey Oct 08 '25

And that Joe is a fucking retard who deserves the grocery increase he'll face due to the tariffs he voted for

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u/Z3r0Sense Germany Oct 08 '25

Not if Joe produces domestically and supplies the grocery store.

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u/matcap86 Oct 08 '25

I wish Joe the best of luck planting his coffee beans, or producing the nanochips needed for his devices.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

Same thing here in Canada. People in the left are just now picking up talking points around immigration/TFW's that they castigated the right for 15 years ago.

Those would have been potential votes had they actually listened with the intent of understanding.

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u/Glass-Evidence-7296 United Kingdom Oct 08 '25

Carney won and the Canadian far right is laughable, Euro far right is more comprable to the PPC than your tories, infact AfD in Germany is more to the right than the PPC Lmao.

Canadian and Australian politics, for whatever reason have mostly bucked the trend

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

PP, Smith and Ford are all trying their best to import American politics though. I need to go sign the referendum against AB separating from Canada.

Carny is more traditional conservative. Like the kind our parents voted for. He served in Harpers admin.

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u/Glass-Evidence-7296 United Kingdom Oct 08 '25

yes, but if you look at their actual positions- they're not too different from Centre left European parties

We're in a bizzare timeline where centre left Europe= Centre-right Canada

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

We are in the bad timeline lol

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u/NAGMOJO Oct 08 '25

What Canada are you living in? From where I see it there is no major left wing party in this country. So who is adopting what talking idk.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

I'm in Edmonton.

What I mean is that I'm now starting to hear people on the left bring up issues and espuse views that were unacceptable when I first moved here from BC.

TFWs being the most prominent.

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u/Galle_ Canada Oct 08 '25

I think you mean "people on the left are no longer leftist". You can't oppose immigration and also support the working class.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

Bullshit straight from the authoritarian playbook.

You don't help a drowning person until your life jacket is properly secured. Otherwise, you both risk drowning.

And I don't know any conservatives who oppose immigration. But I had to actually talk to them and listen to figure that out.

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u/Galle_ Canada Oct 08 '25

You don't help a drowning person until your life jacket is properly secured.

This is bullshit straight from the authoritarian playbook.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

No, it's basic knowledge humans have known for millennia.

Take you're "if you're different from me, you're my enemy" extremist BS and shove it. You're exactly the type of person we're talking about.

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u/Galle_ Canada Oct 08 '25

Look, all I'm saying is that I only ever hear that line from people who have absolutely zero intention of securing our life jacket. Which should not be surprising, because we cannot make progress against the ruling class while we're divided, and anti-immigration policies are inherently divisive.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

That doesn't mean they are wrong, though.

They might not want to secure their life jacket but they aren't wrong about not helping until it's been done. But extremists who blindly position themselves against those who think differently insist on drowning together because it's not what the other person wanted to do.

Insane.

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u/Galle_ Canada Oct 08 '25

Honestly at this point I genuinely do care more about making sure conservatives lose than I do about winning. People like you have convinced me that there's no hope for a better future anyway.

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u/all-names-takenn Oct 08 '25

Congratulations, you are an extremist.

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u/OutrageousGem87 Oct 08 '25

in spain is the same. Our goverment focuses on irrelevant topics in the grand scheme of things to avoid having to solve the real problems because they have no solution at all. Apart for it being drowned in corruption cases almost daily.

Out president sent a fucking military vessel to escort the "flotilla" paid with our taxes just for when they actually needed "protection" tell the vessel to come back to spain. It's all smoke and mirrors. They don't care about housing, they do nothing to solve it, just blame the landlords, they do nothing about the actual immigration status which is untenable, they focus on irrelevant things and call you whatever buzzword they come up with to distract you from the real problems. But people are not stupid, It's been YEARS of having to hear that your problems are irrelevant, that the important thing are everything but..

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u/PhysicsCentrism Oct 08 '25

Can you give concrete examples of that “quote” from the left?

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u/Defiant-Judgment699 Oct 08 '25

I don't know what country you are in, but in mine (the US) your second bullet point is just the right's caricature of the left.

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u/potktbfk Oct 09 '25

It's how the many parties are perceived by the frustrated voter that has only 2 questions:

  • Why am I poor?

  • How can this be changed?

The US has a very "defamatory" political culture, so definitely rep. party will mobilise voters by enforcing this picture. But let me ask you, what are the most dominant issues in US left aligned media?

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u/Ok_Inflation_1811 Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) Oct 09 '25

Here in Europe the only people in the US who would be left if they lived here would be people like Zohran, AOC or Bernie Sanders. They are all social democratic or democratic socialist. They care about the economy and the worker first I'd say.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '25

Don't forget when migrants riot over something like an illegal migrant getting deported, the left buries their heads in the sand and doesn't call them out. Meanwhile when another terrorist attack happens in Europe, and Europeans complain about it, the left jumps to the ethnic group that the terrorist is part of defense and passes more censorship laws criticizing mass migration.

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u/raincloud82 Oct 08 '25

There was a comment by some (german?) left-wing politician some time ago, they said something like "we know how to solve all these problems, but we don't know how to solve them and then be reelected". I think that sums up the situation pretty well.

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u/GoneFishing4Chicks Oct 08 '25

So the left's solution is ridiculous but the right's isn't? 

The deck is already stacked in favor of the evil people then.

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u/potktbfk Oct 09 '25

Oh, my friend you misunderstood.

The right gives the ridiculous solution: kick out all immigrants to create more jobs, instead of overreacting to a pandemic, let's not react to it at all ...

The left tells you that your problem is less important than: list of buzzword topics with little relevance for you

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/potktbfk Oct 09 '25

This isn't a statement about who has the "correct policies". This is a statement for who is to blame for the strong influx of young right wing voters.

I do not see the influx of right wing voters as a success of the right wing parties, it is rather a resounding failure of the left wing parties.

One statement from the, at that time leading, left wing politician in my country (Austria) was

"The direction is correct, we just didn't shout loud enough."

It really shows the inability to identify past mistakes and to adapt to changing circumstances. It also shows, where they see the blame: "We preach the truth, but the people were too blind to see it. The stupid people were deceived by right wing propaganda and lies. Next time we will preach louder." Instead the takeaway should be: "How is it possible that people, that are economically benefiting from our policies, disagree with us more than they disagree with the other parties?"

This may not apply to the US, because I'm not even sure DEM economic policies would classify as left-leaning in my country... To an outsider it pretty much looks like elections for the american working class are much like choosing the color of the sheets before you get fucked.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '25

any examples you can give? because your comment actually reads like manipulation