Rachel Marsden
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on
Sputnik France.
Leftism used to be the ideology of youth speaking the truth to power. But that’s no longer the case, with the right side of the political spectrum now showing the way ahead with its counterculture energy, courage, and ideas.
The latest Harvard University Kennedy
School Youth Poll, published earlier this month, found that only
7% of young people aged 18 to 29 consider the United States a “healthy
democracy,” while 52% think that it’s outright failing.
Moreover, they’re disappointed in
President Joe Biden and have lost faith in the government to fix problems that
it has long promised to solve under the pretext of taking more money from
taxpayers – such as healthcare, the economy, and ‘climate change.’
The majority admits that the Covid pandemic
has changed them, partly no doubt due to the traumatic, heavy-handed, and
misguided management of the crisis by the federal government and some states.
So, it’s hardly a surprise that just 31% of respondents claimed that they feel
their country, America, is the greatest in the world.
If there’s one thing that young right and
left-wingers seem to agree on, it’s that the current American administration
and government are pretty useless. Maybe democracy isn’t the real problem, in
much the same way that capitalism isn’t the problem with capitalism when the
ideology itself has been perverted to be synonymous with corporatism (which is
really just government welfare for corporations, or ‘crony capitalism).
Of course, that’s going to fail the vast
majority of Americans – just as a ‘democracy’ that consists of a small number of mostly
wealthy individuals backed and constantly seduced by anti-democratic special
interests isn’t likely to truly represent the average working person.
America has institutional problems that
have either aggravated or persisted over time. And the only thing that those
running for office ever seem to do is argue that their own ideology can fix it.
Unless that ideology explicitly involves combating anti-corruption across the
entire political spectrum – something very difficult to execute in Washington,
where the cogs of the system protect themselves by protecting each other – pure
ideologues are likely to be disappointed. There has to be a supra-ideological,
anti-establishment impetus to change things.
So, which ideology is more likely to possess or introduce that element?
Well, one
easy answer lies in those who stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC on January
6, 2021. They were avowed right-wingers of the more extreme and suggestible
variety. But their leftist counterparts, Antifa, only seem to be bothered
showing up to protect and defend the establishment and its conventional
narratives. My, how times have changed.
During the
last half of the last century, it was the left that was anti-establishment –
right across the western world. In the wake of World War II, young people
rebelled against their parents’ generation that saw fascists come to power in
Western Europe and ultimately plunged the world into conflict. Eventually,
self-avowed conservatives emerged in suits and ties but had to prove to be
‘compassionate’ in their conservatism, with a non-threatening posture, in order
to attract widespread support.
Today’s
youth grew up under parents my own age who mostly sneered at right-leaning
principles, dismissing any conservative ideals, however moderate, as not worthy
of even a platform. But they entertained or adopted every leftist brain
dropping in the interests of ‘diversity’ or ‘tolerance,’ and dismissed those of
us who didn’t as out of touch or even dangerous for society.
Cancel
culture is hardly new. It has just expanded the limits of its intolerance over
the years.
But with
time, over the past couple of decades, more platforms have emerged, and young
people with right-leaning ideals have experienced first-hand lopsided
censorship against their ideological brothers in arms. Meanwhile, they witness
leftist absurdities adopted without much ado across governments, school
systems, and societies at large — all of which have failed their generation, as the youth of all ideologies are now acknowledging, as the new Harvard survey
suggests.
Woke leftist policies and governments or officials that defend and promote them will continue to overpromise and drastically underdeliver. Guaranteed. If only because, as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher said, “The facts of life are conservative.”
And as woke institutions continue to fail,
young people will find ways to continue using technology to reach out and
convert others to their way of thinking – beyond those who are already in their
ideological camp.
In many western countries, including here
in France, the energy and engagement online aren’t on the political left. (In
fact, in France, it’s difficult to even detect a heartbeat on the left.) It’s
young right-wingers of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and life experiences who
are holding online chats and charming even their harshest critics with two
simple words: “Let’s talk.”
These kids grew up with the online
trolling culture and are hardly deterred by personal insults or pushback on
their arguments. If anything, it just further motivates them.
Youth leadership, courage, ideas, and
counterculture energy is completely on the right side of the political
spectrum. Eventually, this is the generation that will come to power and take
over western institutions permeated by leftism, and hopefully reform them. And
all because the left was given so much hope for so long that it will have
ultimately hung itself.
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