Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?

Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?

Josh is 24 years old and works as a carer. It’s not easy work, but he prefers it to his old job in a supermarket: most of his clients are elderly and “just want someone there with them, because they’re lonely”. In his spare time Josh used to be into boxing. But lately he’s got into politics instead.

Like many of his gen Z contemporaries, he’s thoroughly disillusioned with the mainstream kind. “The two parties that have been in power for 100-plus years have done nothing. The economy’s a mess,” he scoffs. But if he sounds like the kind of anti-establishment young person who once rallied to the radical left, Josh’s frustration has taken him in another direction. An ardent leaver in his teens, who backed Boris Johnson in 2019, he now belongs to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

  • atro_city
    -1•2 months ago

    Mike Nicholson has learned to expect sullen faces and folded arms when he enters a classroom. “They’re like, well, this is all going to be woke rubbish,” he says, ruefully. A former English teacher, Nicholson now runs Progressive Masculinity, which organises workshops for teenage boys in British secondary schools exploring positive ways to be a man. Teenagers so rarely hear the word “masculinity” without “toxic” attached, he explains, that they’re expecting a lecture. Once they realise they can talk freely, they barely stop.

    Amen. I’ve been saying this or a while: stop using the term toxic masculinity! It’s ostracizing men. The left has to stop treating men like the enemy and stop with their purity tests.

    • Do you believe big companies are a problem?
    • Yes
    • Do you think Marxism is the only solution?
    • No
    • You’re out, fucking nazi.

    Then the left wonders why people aren’t flocking to them. They preach diversity, inclusion, openness, safe space, and so on, but if someone utters a thought that doesn’t fit the narrative you’re a nazi, a misogynist, an enlightened centrist, a capitalist, or whatever else can be thrown at you.

    All in all, a great article, but if shared in left-wing circles, there’ll probably a lot of name-calling and jokes about “men are afraid of strong women”, “they’re afraid of losing power”, “see how it feels”, and so on. It’s like people cannot find the empathy in themselves they so loudly call for in others.

    • @[email protected]
      2•2 months ago

      but if someone utters a thought that doesn’t fit the narrative you’re a nazi, a misogynist, an enlightened centrist, a capitalist, or whatever else can be thrown at you.

      This is opinion, masquerading as fact, folks. It’s most likely a regurgitated opinion in my estimation, too.