No, Gen Z Is Not The New Face of Fascism

Is Europe’s youth growing into a generation of budding authoritarians? Have we somehow raised a cohort longing for the days of strongmen and dictatorships? Are we perched on the precipice of a coup against the liberal democratic order? 

You could be forgiven for thinking this was the case, based on the reporting of a new study on youth attitudes towards democracy. A YouGov poll for the Tui Institute published its annual survey of 16-to-26-year-olds across Europe last week, and found that Generation Z (those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s) are increasingly sceptical of the status quo. 

Or, as the Guardian frames it, “Young Europeans losing faith in democracy,” with increasing numbers even “backing authoritarian rule.” Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s national broadcaster, took a similarly alarmist tone on its “Ekot” programme. It interviewed Åsa Wikforss, a professor of theoretical philosophy, who described the study as “deeply worrying.” “When people lose faith in democracy as a system,” she said, “it can herald the demise of democracy, so this is very dangerous.” In Spain, Cadena SER, the country’s oldest and largest radio station, published an article on its website denouncing the supposedly misogynistic, xenophobic, and increasingly fascistic European youth. 

This is far from the whole picture. For starters, the study discovered that almost 60% of young Europeans prefer democracy to any other form of government. In Poland, Spain, and France, support for the current democratic system was particularly low, ranging from 48% to 52%. However, young Germans remain uniformly supportive at 71%. 

The statistics that seem to have caused the most hysteria, however, are those that show the youth’s apparent openness to non-democratic forms of government. Around one-fifth—or 21%—of the respondents say that they would be willing to accept an authoritarian government under certain circumstances. What those circumstances are—or how the question was exactly worded—is unclear. But it seems to have been roundly interpreted as meaning that young people are moments away from taking up arms and overthrowing their respective governments. 

Obviously, this isn’t the case, and this 21% figure ought to be taken with a massive helping of salt. Looking at some of the other results, it seems clear that this is evidence not of a mass turning of our youth towards autocracy, but of a deep unhappiness with the status quo. 

For starters, the poll found that the vast majority of young people wanted to see meaningful change in their countries’ politics. Across all the nations surveyed, only 6% of youth thought the political system was working well. No wonder, given just how badly this generation has been let down by their governments. We see this in the changing attitudes towards issues like immigration, which European youth is increasingly (and perhaps uncharacteristically) concerned about. Today, 38% of young people support tougher border controls, compared with 26% in 2021. The same can be said on the topic of climate change. Just one-third say that environmental concerns should take precedence over economic growth, marking a drop from 44% in 2021. And when asked about the European Union, a solid minority of almost 40% do not believe the bloc acts in a democratic way. More than half criticise the EU for focussing too much on “trivial issues,” and not enough on things that actually matter, like defence and economic issues.

All this reflects a generation that feels insecure about its future, economically, politically, and culturally. Speaking to the Guardian, Thorsten Faas, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, who worked on the study, said: “Among people who see themselves as politically to the right of centre and feel economically disadvantaged, their support of democracy sinks to just one in three.” But far from signalling a wholesale turn against democracy in general, this could more accurately be read as a cry of frustration against the many broken promises of liberal democratic societies. Young people today are ripe for revolt against the parties they view as having made their lives worse. Across the continent, the story is largely the same—soaring house prices, withering job markets, an unsustainable cost of living, combined with being locked in their homes for the best part of two years due to the COVID pandemic, have left many feeling alienated and cynical about the future. One study from last year found that 32% of French young people believed that their lives will only get worse within the next decade. Similarly, most teenagers in the UK imagine that things will be harder for them than their parents. In Italy, one-third of teenagers plan to leave the country once they’re old enough. 

Who else should young people hold responsible for their predicament other than the mostly left-liberal parties that have dominated politics in most European nations for their entire lives so far? We saw the manifestation of this in the European parliamentary elections last year. Right-populist and Eurosceptic parties made significant gains in most member states, but nowhere was this more pronounced than among Gen Z. In Germany, 16% of voters under 24 flocked to the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland, making it second only to the Christian Democrats. In France, roughly one-third of young people voted for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. Meanwhile, in Belgium, right-wing nationalist Vlaams Belang was the most popular party among Gen Z men, although the Green Party remained the top choice for women of the same age. 

The youth may be split across left and right when it comes to gender, but even young women are opting for far-left, anti-establishment parties over the mainstream liberal-left. In Germany’s federal elections this February, Die Linke, successor to East Germany’s Communist Party, secured 27% of the vote among those aged 18 to 24, a sizeable proportion of those women. In general, Die Linke’s membership consists of 44.5% women and 60% under 30s—making it one of the youngest, and most female, of the large parties. In the UK’s General Election last July, a similar pattern emerged, with almost a quarter of women aged between 18 and 24 voting for the Green Party. In Spain’s most recent general election in 2023, over half of young women voted for far-left parties. 

This populist, and especially rightward, turn should surprise no one. After all, this generation has grown up entirely under the thumb of political correctness. For many Gen Zers, identity politics, gender ideology, and green zealotry have been rammed down their throats since they were toddling, or at least since they were in school or university. There has been little reprieve from leftist indoctrination. All the while, they have been forced to watch the societies their parents—or even older siblings—were fortunate enough to reap the benefits from, crumble around them. They are, understandably, furious. 

None of this means that Gen Z is a threat to democracy. If anything, young people are disturbed by the lack of representation in their current political systems. They want democracy to work better, and for them, not to ditch it altogether. The results of the Tui survey are nothing to panic about. But they are an indication that the younger generation is disillusioned with the state of politics and not afraid to demand change. Our current order would do well to listen.