Young Europeans losing faith in democracy, poll finds

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/04/young-europeans-losing-faith-in-democracy-poll-finds?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

by mistermystere

37 comments

  1. There are 3-4 countries pouring billions into a (hybrid) war against democracy… considering this it is a miracle that we are still hanging on.

  2. If recent events have taught us anything it’s that taking the public’s temperature at any given point in time says nothing about how they’ll vote.

  3. Everyone wants a strongman until the strongman has his boot on *their* neck.

  4. It wouldn’t be because most politicians are taking donations to further the interests of wealthy individuals or companies, and are generally inaccessible or not interested in furthering the values or views of their constituents? Career politicians are just corrupt corporate dogs.

  6. Enjoy the polls as they last. The oligarchy won’t allow them much longer.

  7. Our parents said democracy is strong and can defend itself. But then it can’t and they are barely even trying.

  8. It’s a simple problem of “things haven’t gotten better in my lifetime, I want change”.

  9. It’s not that democracy doesn’t work, it’s that capitalism erodes the functionality of democracy.

  10. If you’re getting all and the same no matter who’s elected you lose faith in elections.

    The rich bought all the politicians so they became different flavours of the same shit.

    Next on the menu: strongmen.

  11. >Women in Germany, France and Italy identified as progressive in higher numbers than four years ago, while young men in Poland and Greece have grown more conservative in the same period.

    This is happening all over the developed world. For the first time in generations, Gen Z men are more conservative than their predecessors. This trend is likely to continue into Gen Alpha and beyond.

  12. I wonder how much the constant bombardment of US politics, and the perpetual Middle East mayhem, has to do with that. It for sure influenced Brexit.

    I think it is very unhealthy to be tuned into the whole world and all their problems. We should focus on EU and the countries we border with like Ukraine, and forget about the rest. Can’t save them all, we tried, we failed.

  13. Not surprising. Output legitimacy is crucial for the support of governing systems and output in the past years hasn’t been stellar. Gen Z are propably going to become the first generation poorer then their parents and the bleak prospects under current democratic governments are driving support for other models of government, even if they haven’t proven succesfull in the past

  14. Because we have not known real democracy. 

    Elections are made to **avoid** democracy. In France at least, post revolution intellectuals were debating how the government should work, and the people have been deemed too stupid to rule, hence why elections have been chosen. 

    They already agreed that a true democracy should be ruled by randomly picked citizens, not elected ones. 

  15. I wonder how much this is a factor of two things:

    1. Aging populations voting in their own interests.
    2. The suppression of young leaders within the party structures.

    Essentially, the mainstream political parties are beholden to the pensioners, and the cat is out the bag. Young people know it, and see no hope of improvement.

    I write that as someone who could scarcely be more enthusiastic about Democracy qua ideal. In practice, though, the fact that we have countries full of very self-interested pensioners voting for five years of treats for themselves, followed by death, and handing the bill onto younger people, is an obvious recipe for disaster.

  16. Due to the socials and internet, democracy is indeed quite weak at the moment. People has very little defence against propaganda.

  17. Oh gee, I wonder why.

    It’s not like they are mostly only serving the old and retirees… Right ? /S

  19. Basically nobodies endgoal is democracy anymore. The right wants strong leaders that “act”. The elite uses courts to block and alter democratic law instead of using parliament. The left wants different weights for different groups in the democratic landscape

  20. My country went from 1% Muslim to 20% in 50 years and “there’s nothing we can do”. People realised voting doesn’t matter.

  21. The problem with such general sentiments is that they just allow everyone to <insert gripe> and eye roll a self righteous “what did you expect?”

    Young Europeans are sick of capitalism. They’re sick of migration. They want to own a home. Want better jobs. Better welfare. Better roads… whatever. 

    Youn Europeans are sick of political gamesmanship. Sick of populism, or neoliberalism, or institutionalism.  

    Irl… I think none of these are the actual reason. I think the “*medium is the message.*”

    Over the last decade, social media feeds have taken over the political information space.  Personalized feeds… are the medium. The message is populism. Right, left, centre… it doesn’t matter. The message is populism regardless. 

    Populism is just what works, within current media culture. 

    “Democracy not working” is pretty much intertwined with political populism… especially short form. “*Elites of one description or another have captured democracy to screw you”*

    Rhetorical defence of the institution, good news stories or examples of democracy working are pretty unlikely to cross most people’s feed. 

    Politicians are increasingly native to this new medium of political discourse and counter narratives are “bad politics.”

    This process is still ongoing. Worried. 

  22. Young people don’t vote then act all surprised when politicians don’t care about them

  23. Well that’s what happens when corporatism and fascism hides behind a glass barrier and nobody is allowed to do anything about it

  24. I’m 50 and am losing hope in democracy. Time and again I see no consequences for corruption and failures. I see a 2-tiered system for those in power and the rest of us. We give hope and our votes to new parties hoping things will change but they do not seem to progress.

    I do not want authoritarians. But democracy is certainly losing its luster.

    “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” – W. Churchill

  25. We don’t have a perfect system but at least in democracy we can choose the government every 4 or 5 years. An authoritarian system will not resolve the problems and the people have to obey.

  26. Référendum d’initiative citoyenne ✊😤🔥🇨🇵

  27. If I was Polish I’d lose faith in democracy too considering recent elections

  28. then it might be a good idea for then to actually vote. They vote at lower rates than the average, and in most cases at pretty miserable levels. You don’t get to complain if you don’t vote.

  29. The problems Europe faces ( climate change, resource limitations ) aren’t caused by an overabundance of democracy.

    Choosing to have less democracy, won’t solve anything; quite the opposite, it will be like tapering off the painkillers, taking the bandaid/tourniquet off.

    European democracy ( or what passes for it ) is the reason why things are as horrible as they should/will be.

  31. I hope these people know that their own performance in such systems does not influence their fate.
    You are smart? You can only learn something if you are obedient.
    Without knowledge, intelligence is worth nothing.

    But even with education, intelligence in authoritarian systems does not produce as high a density of patents as in free societies.

    Without patents, the country (the ruling group) has to live off what it has in the ground.
    Most countries do not do so well in this aspect.
    Overall, the living conditions for the local population deteriorate.

  32. No surprise there.
    As is Democracies just seem to be spiralling to either Oligarchies, Corporatocracies or straight up authoritarian.

    Democracy is the greatest system humanity has come up with. Unfortunately it is also the hardest to maintain.

  33. Politicans make politic for the rich and the old, mostly for the old rich. Young people are there to pay the bill and nothing else. And suddenly people are suprised that faith in democracy is falling? You can vote what you want, you won´t get anything.

  34. The version of “democracy” that exists today in most countries is a farce. You get the choice between rich idiot A who is looking to hollow out the state for himself and his buddies while the workers suffers, or rich idiot B who is no better but doesnt want to admit it.

    I envy those who truly have their voices felt through thejr votes. It is a privilege that most of us will not feel

  35. No shit sherlock.

    These people lived THEIR ENTIRE LIVES in one big fucking crisis.

    The people who currently enter the workforce, were born in the 2000s. Let’s have a looksie, shall we?

    – 2001: 9/11 attacks and subsequent ~~”war on terror”~~ republican bullshit wars of aggression that cost trillions, destabilized an entire region, caused the still ongoing refugee crisis, resulted in the formation of ISIS and re-armed every group of religios nutjobs up to and including the Taliban to the teeth
    – 2002: Dot com bubble bursts
    – 2008: US subprime mortgage crisis drags the entire world in a financia crisis lasting 3 years. Pretty much every western country cuts back on social spending, education, healthcare, and bails out asshole bankers, who then go on to give themselves phat bonus payments for their genius
    – 2009-2010: European debt crisis. States cutback social spending more
    – 2011: Black Monday
    – 2014: Russian financial crisis and South Americas economy tanks
    – 2015: Chinese stock market crashes
    – 2015: Syrian civil war starts the, still ongoing btw., European migration crisis. Subsequently, right wing parties rise in Europe, centrist conservative parties copypaste their agenda, while centrist social parties stop giving a fuck about working class because they are too busy telling everyone that there is no migration crisis
    – 2016: Trump I gets elected, subsequently US debt skyrockets due to huge tax breaks to billionaires
    – 2018: Argentines market tanks, and is still shit to this day
    – 2020: COVID pandemic starts, plus the stock market crashes, AGAIN.
    – 2022: Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent energy market crisis. Both still ongoing.
    – 2022: Massive inflation hits every developed economy, the cost of living crisis, which has been smoldering since at least 2018, goes into overdrive
    – 2022: German economic crisis
    – 2024: Trump II gets elected, vows to extend the aforementioned tax breaks for billionaires

    And that’s not even an exhaustive list!

    Lets be fuckin clear about something: Almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of these events, would have been called *”once in a lifetime something”* by the boomers.

    And here we are in 2025. Trump starts a worldwide economic war with tariffs, US economy tanks, US starts deporting immigrants thus kicking out a sizeable portion of their workforce, tanking the tanked economy again (Drill Baby Drill, amirite?). Oh, and the Ukraine war is still ongoing, the cost of living crisis isn’t resolved ANYWHERE, EU politics are still not capable on agreeing on anything other than their desire to spy on peoples provate chats for no good reason, the housing market makes it damn near impossible for many people to rent an apartment, let alone own one, the summers are hot enough that you can fry eggs on the streets, SUVs are killing ever more children, billionaires fly to space for funsies while children go hungry in the schools, Israel is engaged in war with Iran and Palestine, the US is now at war with Iran, the politicians keep lying about everything, tech corporations can steal peoples data with impunity, and asocial media are basically unregulated, merrily poisoning the public discourse, and gerontocratic politics run rampant. Companies demand 2 PhDs, 7 interviews, a 2 liter blood sample, and ones firstborn for entry level positions.

    Did I forget anything? Oh, of course, paid streaming services now play ads every 5 nanoseconds, and websearch is shit.

    Sorry, but **HOW IS ANYONE SURPRISED THAT YOUNG PEOPLE ARE PISSED?!**

  36. Democracy = rule of the majority, the majority are old and against us, so Democracy, by definition, will always be used against us.

    Now if we had a system where we exclude certain groups from voting, like say, the boomers, then maybe our system can finally start benefiting us.

    Oops, we accidentally reverted to fascism.

  37. Because they see the system is rigged in favor of the rich, corporations, and those in power, and it shouldn’t be like that. Don’t blame them or “propaganda”; blame those who led people to start losing trust in democracy. Theory of democracy is not an issue; the problem is how it is practiced.

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