The result of the autumn’s school elections hit like a tidal wave. The Conservative Party became the largest party, while it was the FRP that made the most progress. The Labor Party made one of its worst elections ever, and a united left party went on a rampage. Red was halved, and MDG’s appeal among young people was only in shreds. If the youth have become selfish, it came as a shock from the radical parent generation. It was like hearing that even the youth were better before. The right won the election on TikTok, was the excuse from the left. Communication is always easier to point to than politics. Young Conservative leader Ola Svenneby and FpU leader Simen Velle have received a lot of credit for the right’s strong result in the school elections. But how much is due to an ideological change among young men in particular? Photo: William Jobling / news It’s not just old people after all Now comes the Norwegian Statistical Institute’s preliminary election analysis which shows that this was not just a wave of mood in the school election. Among men under the age of 25, 58 per cent voted for the Conservative Party or FRP in the municipal elections. The Labor Party got a paltry 7 percent. The entire left together with Ap, SV, Sp, Rødt and MDG received a total of 22 percent of the vote among young men. We see the same in the background figures for the monthly opinion polls. Labor in particular does very poorly among voters under the age of 30, while the Conservative Party and especially the FRP do strongly. Now the party strategists at Youngstorget have no shortage of concerns, but this should be high on the list of headache issues. Because there are many who probably have to rethink politics, communication and voter recruitment. Almost on autopilot, it has been thought that young people are more climate conscious and radical. That they strike for climate is woke and left-wing. Commentators and others have also declared that the FRP is an old man’s party. Now they are admittedly greatly overrepresented among men, but they have obviously attracted the young. Erna Solberg and Ola Svenneby were satisfied with this autumn’s school choice. Photo: Amanda Iversen Orlich / n649101 Not dead, but exaggerated It caused a stir when Unge Høre leader Ola Svenneby slightly euphorically announced the death of the Greta Thunberg generation after the victory in the school election. But in the climate activist’s home country, they had long since established that the Thunberg generation was somewhat of an exaggeration created by the media. At the parliamentary election in 2022, the Swedish Green Party received the lowest support of all the parties among the youngest voters. The right’s sister party, the Moderates, was the largest, while the disputed Sweden Democrats (SD) came second. No party had greater growth among young people than the latter. The image of SD as an old man’s party has also changed. Now the party’s voters are far more evenly distributed in all age groups. Greater polarization between girls and boys If you dive into the numbers, several nuances emerge. Because there is a large gender bias among the youngest. Now, in general, female voters are more left-leaning than male voters, but among the youngest, this is far more polarized. Younger women are markedly redder than younger men. In the local elections, there was a red-green majority if only women under 25 were asked. And it is particularly among a group that the FRP does particularly strongly. It is among voters with vocational education or lower education. Popularly called ordinary people and “those who build the country”. A study of the school election that the website Pollofpolls has referred to shows that the FRP “crushes” the other parties among students who attend vocational subjects. Why so blue? Currently, there is little research that can explain this marked change in political attitudes among the youngest. Explanations I like to hear from teachers, lecturers at universities, in political podcasts and elsewhere are, for example, these (NB: watch out for brother-in-law research, oversimplifications, extreme formulations and that many do not recognize themselves at all): Young people are more concerned with and worried about the economy. The right generally has more case ownership of wallet cases and benefits from it. We are about to have a generation that for the first time has the prospect of having it “worse” than their parents. Does that perhaps make young people more materialistic and less idealistic? Young people are concerned with jobs and what we will live on in the future, and young men in particular are more positive about oil and industry. The climate issue is perceived as too moralistic and crisis-maximizing. One consequence of an unpopular government is that more young people seek out the winning team. The right-wing party has had skilled and debating front figures in Unge Høyre leader Ola Svenneby and FpU leader Simen Velle. There have been many years of focus on equality and promoting women. Younger men do not necessarily feel at home in feminism and the often problem-oriented male role. Young men in particular are skeptical of woke and feel a kind of narrower space for expression. Many young people are proper, concerned with performance, set demands and stricter rules. Here, values on the right, for example in school policy, can be more alluring. Social media influencers such as controversial online phenomenon Andrew Tate obviously strike a chord with many young men. He believes that men are superior to women – influencer Andrew Tate, who has millions of followers worldwide. He could be a threat to the women’s struggle and metoo, says one of those who have come close to the man who is called the king of toxic masculinity. The reasons may be many and complex, but the numbers speak for themselves. The question is what the political parties do with it.
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Generation blue – Speech
