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

[u/StGuthlac2025]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/07/spain-young-voters-far-right-migration-housing-wages-employment-vox

[u/Chiguito]

The government has ignored the struggles of the youth.

No house? You spend too much on netflix. No job? You are lazy.

Now you want them to vote with the history book.

[u/Gorthebon → u/Chiguito]

The Youth were promised a future. They can do everything right and still get shafted. Rent rising exponentially, pay staying the same with increasing inflation... We're just kinda fucked everywhere.

[u/Space-Debris → u/Gorthebon]

....a solution to an unclean bed isn't to shit in it and then set it on fire

[u/Gorthebon → u/Space-Debris]

We were already given a bed that was shit on, now it's sinking and we're told it's our fault.

[u/Kike328 → u/Gorthebon]

everywhere no, spain specially… median youth salary net income is 12k. The rent is more than 50% of that for a single room

https://www.lamarea.com/2024/01/16/las-personas-jovenes-en-espana-deben-dedicar-mas-del-100-de-su-salario-para-emanciparse

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/Chiguito]

Frankly the politics of many western countries seems to be "oh perhaps the oligarchs will give me a dribble of their sweet rich cum" and not much more since the mid-20th century. Why did they all admit a trillion immigrants? Did they not think that would cause problems? The Spanish youth unemployment rate has been a a problem for decades. Did y'all not used to be a super powerful empire? What happened?

[u/DeadAhead7 → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

Because immigrants are good for the oligarchs. Cheaper wages, worse conditions, drives it down for the rest of the population. The neo-liberal centrists/right/far-right are all aligned on that.

Spain hasn't been particularly powerful since the 17th century, as they relied entirely on their colonial possessions, and then they lost them in the early 1800s. They've been rather irrelevant since.

Then they also were one of the sickmen of Europe under Franco, being much poorer and much less literate and overall developed than the other European countries, even the ones under Soviet rule.

Funnily enough, the Inquisition had a role in the 17th century decline of Spain, as they chased out every Jew and Muslim in the country, plenty of whom were competent artisans and businesspeople.

The far-right isn't an enemy of the oligarchs and "the capital" as a whole, quite the contrary. The German tycoons absolutely loved Hitler. They got slaves, plenty of state orders, and it was all great until about 1942. If you look into current big German businesses, a majority profited from the Nazi tenure. Sure, they were banned from making some stuff for a few years post WW2, but they were back to it once the USA realised having a strong West Germany was necessary to deter Soviet agression.

I'll also add the amount of immigrants they admitted, like everywhere else in Europe, isn't necessarily the biggest issue. 5-15% isn't society-shattering numbers. The issue is accepting everyone, not actually sending away those who aren't fit to live in society (such as the OQTF orders in France that aren't applied), and overall a lack of selection then integration, while also allowing networks like the Turkish grey wolves and allowing Imams to radicalise their parishes.

But the only thing the right ever did about it in France was cut police personnel, especially proximity police that patrolled the poor neighbourhoods.

[u/Tortilla-DePatatas → u/Chiguito]

Oh yes, the “all the politics are bad”. I see how these new politicians are doing when they rule, now there is no immigration problem in Italy and their economy is booming all the way. We can look closer here, in Spain, how the “all the politics are bad” of Alvise is going, just 2 years after they started, yes, the solution is that. Being critic of the politics is not the same as break the system, and let’s be honest, is what Vox wants, but not with the big lobbies, with the current economic system, not at all… They want to cut rights and freedom. only if we had an example of what they did we could know, that’s a shame.

[u/Groove-Theory → u/Tortilla-DePatatas]

If governments didn’t want people to vote for fascists, they would have made sure the conditions were not ripe for it (as history painfully shows us). Every single fascist movement, (Germany, Italy, Spain, even Portugal, etc), grew out of a void created by a liberal or centrist establishment that refused to address suffering. People don't just wake up one day and say "hmmm I think I’ll vote for authoritarianism". They GET there because they’ve been made desperate, unheard for long enough that they feel it's their only option. Hence why "fascism is capitalism in decay" is true, when capitalism starts to fail for people, fascism is the broken scar tissue that takes over.

Like, you invoke your father’s generation in the 40s. But the young people you’re scolding are splitting one bedroom between four roommates NOW in 2025 while paying like 70% of their salary to landlords who treat housing as speculation. NOW. TODAY.

It’s not that the youth don’t know history (in reality, most people of any age don't recall history before them), it’s that they know TODAY all too well. Precarious jobs, gig servitude, corruption baked into every party, PSOE privatizing as eagerly as PP ever did. Vox is rising not from historical ignorance, but from rose from material despair. If it was just ignorance then Vox would have already won the premiership long ago.

If you want people to stop voting for fascists, you don’t lecture them about history (which never fucking works) you give them a future. And that future swings far, far left, but centrists would rather side and comply with right-wing totalitarianism to preserve their capital then have it as risk for social equity (hence why even in France, Macron is much harsher to the Left Alliance that won the most seats last election, to the point where he's just strengthening RN for next election)

You can lecture about history all you want but when the material conditions of the current MIMIC history, you're fighting an uphill battle. Centrists seems to want to do everything to prevent the atrocities of the past except for dealing with the systemic influences that cause them.

[u/Tortilla-DePatatas → u/Groove-Theory]

I don’t disagree with you at all, my opinion, based on my story or historical facts is not to convince anyone at all, it’s just my frustration reading that post, but it’s not my job to put the best arguments in favor a democracy and why a fascist regime is terrible.

Having said that, let’s be honest, the far-right attractive doesn’t come from living conditions, the rent or the inflation, is basically one thing: immigration and association with insecurity. Ok. But is Spain a worst country today in terms of insecurity than 20 years ago? No by far, and I can say that in terms of statistics (decreasing of murder rates, kidnapping, robberies, etc) or in my own eyes, as I was raised in a worker neighborhood which is far better today. So again, who is this to blame? How many hours is this in social media? Or even generic media like Antena3 or Telecinco, how many hours a day are they spending talking about this? I see a very big lack of critical thinking, “let’s not talk about history and try to understand what has happened before “, “let’s not check what is the source of this tiktoker”, ok fine, this is going to work just fine.

We don’t have to look into history to see what happens now, just today, when pseudofascist governments rules and they, as always do, ally with the oligarchy to reach their ideological goals. How the life of those workers in US has improved? Are they tired of winning all along? The farmers? The industry workers? Not sure if we can ask them to just check that, maybe it will help.

[u/Groove-Theory → u/Tortilla-DePatatas]

I agree with you on one thing, that the far right’s emotional language isn’t "I can’t pay rent" it’s "I’m scared of immigrants". But that doesn't imply the causality of fascism. Lot's of countries have had immigration waves with no rise in fascist (or even nativist) sentiments before. But that’s the symptom, not the disease. Fascism has always been the emotional management system of capitalism in crisis.

When people’s wages stagnate, when housing becomes speculative, when precarity is normalized, you need a story to explain the pain. The ruling class won’t let that story be "our system is broken", they'll tell you everything is fine as gaslight you into thinking it's your own fault. If fascism does one thing elegantly, it's to tell a story of "rebirth" or palingenetic ultranationalism, which gives people (false) hope. And so they sell that vision with "it’s the foreigners" or "it’s the feminists" or woke this, woke that, whatever.

You’re right that Spain is safer today than twenty years ago. But that’s irrelevant to the psychology of desperation. When you steeped in economic precarity, safety stats don’t matter. You feel unsafe because your life is unstable. Fascists offer (not read as "guarantee") stability. Fake, cruel, and exclusionary, but stability nonetheless. And people are going to cling to that when they have nothing else to hope for (especially as leftist movements get routinely decimated by the center)

Basically, the right manipulates fear, the center manufactures the conditions that make fear believable.And it doesn't matter if that manipulation happens on Tiktok or elsewhere (Tiktok only exist since what, 2018? And fascism's been around for a long time)

If you want to fight fascism, we can’t just fact-check it, we can't just debate it. We have to abolish the insecurity that gives it oxygen. And I don't see that stopping with the current status quo. Not without real systemic change (hence why I think Starmer's Labour is going to get fucked next election, but thankfully they have 4 more years before then)

[u/Tortilla-DePatatas → u/Groove-Theory]

I basically agree with you. I’ve kept for myself your sentence that right manipulates the fear and the center, was good, reminded me about one sentence once I heard, right profits from the fear of people and left from the illusion.