→ AfD voters flip to the other side of the populist horseshoe
Germans want to send a message to the establishment — but they can’t quite decide on who should be sending that message. Ahead of the European elections in June, new polling shows that as support for the Right-wing AfD has decreased, support for the Left-populist BSW has gone up.
With similar attitudes towards immigration, foreign policy and various cultural issues, both parties are likely feeding from the same trough of voters, which threatens to split the populist vote. But with Olaf Scholz’s traffic light coalition in disarray and his own party’s plummeting popularity, that may not matter all that much. The elections in June will be an early test of just how durable the AfD-BSW voter bloc is.
→ Young Tories facing extinction
Young Tories have long been a political fixture in Britain, but are they facing an extinction-level event? With less than a year to go until the next election, support among the 18-34 age group for the Conservatives has halved in the past fortnight, falling from 16% to just 7%, according to DeltaPoll. Meanwhile, Labour appears to have mopped up the fleeing Tory voters, with support for the party rising from 59% to 70% support during the same period.
In this poll for under 35s the scores are:
Labour 70%
Tories 7%
LD 5%
Greens 5%
Reform 5% https://t.co/jlmHyhZ9vC— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) March 18, 2024
Older Tories may comfort themselves with the misattributed Churchill quotation that anyone who isn’t a conservative at 35 has no brain, but these figures make for troubling reading. As research has shown, young people aren’t drifting Right as they get older; in fact, many are staying on the Left. Maybe it’s all that Starmer talk of acid house raves that’s attracting them…
→ Is your state legislating against DEI?
Anti-DEI initiatives are springing up across America — so much so that it’s hard to keep track. Thankfully, though, the Chronicle of Higher Education has provided a useful resource that monitors the bills which have either been passed or are under consideration at state level, as well as those which have gone to Congress.
The rather colourful assortment on the above map gives a flavour of just how big the push against DEI has been in red states in particular. The Chronicle cites 80 pieces of legislation in 28 states since the beginning of last year, with North Dakota, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah all signing bills into law. Will momentum spread into the blue states next?
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SubscribeSo, under-35s in Europe are moving to the Right but in Britain they’re all moving to the Left. Wrong! Like most other age groups, they’re just moving away from the useless incumbents.