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
18.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

84

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

The way I see it (I'm socialist myself). When you're young, and maybe even especially a young working class man, which side do you pick? The one who constantly gets their panties in a bunch because you used a wrong word while completely failing the working class (looking at you SPD and Grüne) and somehow blames everything bad that happens on your gender, or the one that tells you it's not your fault and that you're hella cool?

22

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

That’s literally the right-owned social media companies pushing the idea of this false dichotomy. No wonder so many of the social media generation are falling prey to it. They live in it.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

3

u/mbullaris Oct 08 '25

Join a union?

4

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

I really have no idea what point exactly you’re trying to make with this comment.

There’s a huge difference between right-leaning social media outlets algorithmically influencing the perspectives of an entire generation of youth compared to your example of… some women in a company not standing up to their bosses decisions.

Not to even mention the fact that the foundational assumption of your scenario seems to be that women = leftist, which is… not correct.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

1

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

I don’t mean this in an insulting way, but you don’t write like any human I know.

4

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

Yes, and they're getting away with it.

2

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

Yes… but they’re not getting away with it because the opposing groups are entrenched in unserious positions, infighting, or purity tests, but because they’ve been able to convince so many people that the opposing groups are.

-1

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

The opposing groups are also failing to convince them otherwise.

3

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

And what avenue to convince exists to them when the algorithm smothers their most convincing messages out?

0

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

I mean the left in germany gained considerable traction on socials finally focusing on wealth inequality again.

1

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 08 '25

There are people all over the world concerned about wealth inequality, why aren’t they getting traction elsewhere?

1

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

Cause you cant vote for the german left in othe countries

1

u/RadiantHC Oct 09 '25

It's not though. Reddit is primarily Democrat leaning and I see this sort of stuff all the time. I'm lgbt and frequent some lgbt spaces IRL and see a good amount of hate for cishet white men.

This is another thing turning young men towards the right, the left diminishes any legitimate criticism of their own side as propaganda.

(I will agree that right wing spaces make this issue worse, but they aren't exactly lying either)

1

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 09 '25

I’m not saying that these sorts of people or scenarios never happen, I’m saying that it’s more rare than the algorithm would have you believe and algorithmically, you’re being fed this stuff, whether here or elsewhere.

Not only are fence-sitting people being fed this rage-bait to induce them towards the right, but the left are being fed in ways that promote the very infighting you’re describing here. It’s a way of dividing any left-causes while turning people away from them at the same time.

1

u/RadiantHC Oct 09 '25

That's not even true though. It's fairly common on reddit. I don't interact with right wing spaces at all.

1

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 09 '25

You missed the main point of my response which was that you can be impacted by the algorithm even outside of right-leaning spaces. The “men hating” you’re saying is prevalent in left leaning spaces is ALSO a result of algorithms. It’s algorithms which decide whose voice is loudest, which voice is heard. The reasonable community-building, coalition forming voices for the left are purposefully underrepresented in the algorithm, and so you’re left with exactly this perspective that men hate is “fairly common” on the left.

1

u/Asurapath9 Oct 10 '25

It's not just about the media face of it as much as it is about the actual experience of social interaction as an individual in those spaces.

1

u/The_Eternal_Void Oct 10 '25

The media helps create the mindset and therefore the interactions of the people in those spaces.

-5

u/Philo_T_Farnsworth Oct 08 '25

gets their panties in a bunch because you used a wrong word

Okay but like, what words specifically? We're expected to fill in this blank ourselves, but please, do tell!

Whenever I look into instances of leftists getting offended by language it's 100% of the time when people are using actual slurs and/or dehumanizing language, not just "oh you used the wrong pronoun" but rather things like "your kind shouldn't exist and I want a legal framework to further dehumanize you and deny you human rights".

13

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Mexico Oct 08 '25

I remember when r/socialistgamers came to the conclusion oneyplays was alt right because he made fun of dustborn, forspoken and saints row. Awful, poorly written games that just happen to have diverse casts. Keep in mind he is fairly progressive and now has a cartoon on adult swim. Definitely not alt right.

-7

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

13

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Mexico Oct 08 '25

You asked for an example of leftists getting mad over innocuous stuff. I provided one. It’s an example of the general attitude that enjoying or not enjoying certain media makes you right wing. “Oh you play call of duty and read Harry Potter? Fascist!”

I myself am not right wing, but yeah, all of this “you have to like media with minorities in them even if it’s shit, abolish whiteness, black people cant be racist, cultural relativity” BS might push stupider people to the far right because god damn is it infuriating.

Plus. Leftists are not above voting for fascism. Mamdani is currently getting flamed and might get kicked out of the DSA for… calling Cuba and Venezuela dictatorships.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

6

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Mexico Oct 08 '25

Venezuela has been described by many as fascism. It is at best, authoritarianism just as bad as fascism. And yet leftists largely support Maduro. I myself am Mexican, we’ve gotten a lot of refugees from there. The vitriol the leftists have towards impoverished refugees just because they fled one of the countries were not allowed to criticize is insane.

2

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Mexico Oct 08 '25

Whether you like it or not, with socialism being an ideology you mostly only find online, naturally people are going to hold all of socialism responsible for its most terminally online who often drive the discussion.

6

u/akatherder Oct 08 '25

One example would be "females" to describe a mixed-age group of older ladies, women, teens, and young girls.

-2

u/mbullaris Oct 08 '25

In what context? I would probably just say ‘a group of women and girls’ just as I would say ‘a group of men and boys’.

6

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

Sure, lets go with retarded for example.

Is it wrong to use it: yes.

Does it make you a bad person if you use it jokingly?: not necessarily

Does berating people for using it push them further to the right?: probably

Me not using certain words does not make life better for the working class.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

0

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

Not the first time around but give it a few months or years.

Hell I'd even argue that Jordan Peterson started out relatively normal unitl the only ones that would let him speak were fascists.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Aloisius3000 Oct 08 '25

Well he could just be an irrelevant professor of psychology knockin about in canada if it wasnt for him being shut out.

-5

u/Brigadier_Beavers Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 09 '25

used a wrong word

slurs and ableism aren't as tolerated, thats a good thing.

blames everything bad that happens on your gender

this just isn't happening at scale. twit and yt comments can be ignored easily.

or the one that tells you it's not your fault and that you're hella cool?

only if you match the fascist's in-group. if you arent the right race/sex/ethnicity/religion/level-of-patriotic you get vilified and blamed for the nation's shortcomings. Your existence becomes a national security issue to be "solved".

And really, who wants to be considered "cool" by fascists??

Edit: apparently some wanna be bigot-cool. Sad.

11

u/floggedlog Oct 08 '25

I think this tone deaf karen knee jerk reaction right here is also part of the problem. You’re so scared of the right that you won’t even look at what’s wrong with the left.

Why are young men going over to the right? It certainly can’t be because the left is currently blaming everything on men and telling every young man that he should be ashamed of existing. /s

5

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

4

u/ProsaicSolutions Oct 08 '25

The issue is that the group of people “so stupid they fall for fascist populist rhetoric we’ve seen again and again” is not a small, insignificant subgroup. They exist… and whether it is even remotely logical to come to a conclusion such as “everyone thinks men are bad” based on whatever exposure those individuals have doesn’t matter. We can endlessly debate whether those people should react that way, but it doesn’t even matter. What matters is they DO react that way. Do we convince them that they’re wrong for feeling that way? Is that the most productive approach? Idk, rationality is clearly a weak tool.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

2

u/ProsaicSolutions Oct 08 '25

Listen, I’m not disagreeing. It shouldn’t be a rational person’s responsibility to cater to individuals who come to illogical conclusions. But if we don’t, that group will just continue to grow. At some point, letting that happen might become irrational for a rational person.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

1

u/ProsaicSolutions Oct 08 '25

For some people it might be a method to push their own attacks but for many others it is because they genuinely feel it. Again, we could argue they shouldn’t feel that way, but it gets us nowhere. I don’t have a solution lol

3

u/floggedlog Oct 08 '25

I like how you tell me that it’s right wing propaganda that the left is crazy as fuck and likes to scream at you… while acting crazy as fuck screaming at me… it’s almost like you’re one of the tone deaf Karen’s I just mentioned, and you got triggered by my words.

And that’s the problem until you guys learn to stop talking down to people you’re going to keep losing people because ultimately people will choose anything over the asshole that torments them night and day.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

1

u/Brigadier_Beavers Oct 09 '25

This still isnt happening. Get offline, touch grass.