Germany’s 16-year-olds voted for first time. Results are scary…

Editor’s Word: Paul&nbsp, Hockenos&nbsp, is a Berlin- based author focusing on solar power in Europe. He is the creator of five books on Western issues, most late” Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall and the Birth of the New Berlin”. He has his own views expressed in this article. Read more&nbsp, CNN Opinion.

The next day the European Union voted, five years ago, youth across the globe were taking to the streets en mass: &nbsp, demonstrating&nbsp, for severe weather protection laws. They had no claim, they inveighed, on decisions that may define their life for years to come. &nbsp,” We’ll come to class if you keep the environment cool”, they taunted with energy, justifying their bold skipping of course to protest.

Surveys&nbsp, show that younger people (usually the 18 to 24- year- older bracket ) in democracies&nbsp, on both sides of the Atlantic&nbsp, tend to cast their ballots for more reform- thinking, left- of- center parties, more than those on the right. This was why Western liberals had long opposed&nbsp, giving 16 and 17 year- adults the ballot — even though older adolescents are &nbsp, officially permitted&nbsp, to operate, travel vehicles and pay federal income taxes.

And, certainly, in the 2019 European Parliamentary elections, the youngest citizens turned out in droves, expressing their concerns about global warming in what observers called a” Green wave“. A third of Germany’s fresh people&nbsp, voted for the Greens.

Fast forward five years, and it’s a quite different tale.

This German Parliamentary vote, which wrapped up on Sunday, was the first in which Germans&nbsp, as young as 16 were ready to votesince the time was lowered from 18.

And in Austria, Belgium, Malta and Greece, 16 or 17- season- adults had the correct to&nbsp, cast their vote. These adolescents suddenly had a say on those problems that may affect them for decades, if not years, to come.

What a surprise then – and coming days after the&nbsp, 80th&nbsp, anniversary of D- Day&nbsp, — that some European initial- timers threw their votes unfairly behind the much- right Alternative for Germany ( AfD ) party. &nbsp, In this election, &nbsp, 16 % &nbsp, of 16 to 24- year- olds voted AfD — up 11 % from five years ago. ( To be sure, the majority of teens did n’t vote for the far right. However, the rise in those who did is still disturbing.

The AfD, whose members&nbsp, repeat banned Nazi slogans&nbsp, and tout&nbsp, barely veiled racism and Islamophobia, claimed almost as much of the&nbsp, youth vote as the victorious&nbsp, Christian Democratic Union- Christian Social Union ( CDU/CSU) alliance, &nbsp, and far more than&nbsp, the Greens.

Exit polls show that the&nbsp, topic of migration&nbsp, swung many voters — – of all ages — to the right. A full&nbsp, 95 % of German&nbsp, AfD citizens said Germany should control the flow of immigrants and immigrants into Germany. As many people asked whether the AfD is an extraordinary right-wing celebration as long as it addresses the most pressing issues.

The more unsettling is the former claim, given that the AfD has not made a solution of its extremist certificates. Just before the election, on May 20, the group’s lead member, Maximilian Krah, &nbsp, announced that&nbsp, members of the Nazis ‘ notorious military forces, the SS, were n’t automatically thieves. ( Hitler’s elite forces were integral to carrying out the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, as well as brutally stifling domestic opposition to the dictatorship. )

Krah was removed from the battle road but the AfD kept him top of the list. On Monday, as another scandals around him mounted, it decided to&nbsp, reduce him&nbsp, from their new record of EU politicians.

The AfD’s politicians were so offensive and in general far more dramatic than those of its far-right classmates in Europe, that the European Parliament’s Identification and Democracy party, an ally of populist right-wing events that includes Marine Le Pen’s French National Rally, &nbsp, expelled the AfD from its ranks.

This year, the AfD’s menagerie of scandals seemed to grow longer by the week. The party is&nbsp, under surveillance&nbsp, from Germany’s intelligence service for the threat it poses to democracy. The organization might suggest that it be completely barred from politics. And then a recent German&nbsp, investigation&nbsp, found that 28 AfD members serving in German legislatures had been convicted of violence- related crimes, including verbal violence and incitement to hatred.

Not exactly the party’s credentials that you would expect to appeal to the next generation of German voters.

But this about- face of Germany’s youngsters does n’t come out of the blue. &nbsp, German surveys&nbsp, show a general unhappiness with the post- pandemic economic and political conditions. ” It seems as if the coronavirus pandemic left]young people ] irritated about our ability to cope with the future, which is reflected in deep insecurity”, concluded the authors of” Jugend in Deutschland 2024“. The issues most responsible: personal finances, professional opportunities, the health sector, housing and social recognition.

The AfD does n’t directly address any of these issues, instead proposing that EU control and the end of migration would be the solution.

And it’s not restricted to Germany either: in recent elections in&nbsp, Portugal, &nbsp, Italy, &nbsp, Sweden, the&nbsp, Netherlands, and&nbsp, France, the youngest voters threw their support behind extreme nationalist and eurosceptic parties in greater numbers.

Certainly, say experts, the pandemic and social media play a key role in this, above all TikTok, a medium that the far- right has &nbsp, exploited to its advantage.

This altercation in attitudes among young people in Europe, and particularly Germans, who are confronted with the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship in the history class, is extremely worrying. But it’s still too early to conclude, as&nbsp, the BBC does, that” the image of the radical- right voter – typically white, male, non- graduate and, above all, old” has changed long term.

Young people can be especially impulsive, emotional, and are on a steep learning curve. Their dissatisfaction with the sluggish economic recovery, a pandemic that unfairly punished them ( for nothing ), and the world’s confluence of other crises is understandable.

But they must vent this pique constructively, as the extreme right has no answers to these problems ( which, oddly, &nbsp, I’ve heard&nbsp, hard right voters say they recognize. ) This rightist uprising is a temper tantrum that prevents democracy from addressing its own flaws.

Casting a protest vote for a dangerous party can have far-reaching effects, including a less promising future than what these young people seem to be terrified of so much.

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