Weekend Insanity: MSM Now Declares 'the Young' a 'Problem'--because 'they are no longer leftists'

Another day, more lunacy from legacy media, which reveals massive gov't gaslighting and the wrecking of Germany

Today, I’ve got a particular ‘gem’ for you, dear readers. It comes to us via an op-ed by Julia Ruhs, a journalist who works primarily for the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian state broadcaster).

She is part of a generation that seems to be bursting with climate activists, gender activists, and zeitgeist followers. She wants to give a voice to those who don’t see themselves among them and often feel alone with their opinions. When everyone seems to think the same thing, she feels uneasy.

Well, Ms. Ruhs is about as ‘cantankerous’ as they come these days, and she’s weighing in the results of a recent ‘trend study’ entitled ‘Youth in Germany 2024’ (orig. Jugend in Deutschland 2024), a representative survey carried out by researchers at the U of Constance and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

This study, which has been carried out every six months since 2020, is in the news now as it conveys a quite helpful image of Germany right now. I’ll let state broadcaster Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) do the explaining (here and in the following, my translation and emphases):

‘We can speak of a clear shift to the right in the young population’, said [lead author] Hurrelmann. ‘While the parties in the coalition government continue to fall in favour, the AfD is particularly popular.’

According to the survey, 18% of teenagers and young adults who already have a party preference would vote for the Greens, compared to 27% in 2022. The FDP slumped from 19 to 8% in the survey, while the SPD lost ground from 14 to 12%. According to the survey, the CDU/CSU improved from 16 to 20% among young people, while the new Sahra Wagenknecht alliance came in at 5%. The number of those who answered ‘I don’t know’ to the question of who they would vote for rose significantly from 19% two years ago to 25% today. In addition, 10% said they would not vote.

Note the absence of polling data of those who shifted towards the AfD—and the reason may be that, in 2022, a mere 9% of young adults indicated a preference for the AfD. Fast-forward two years, the AfD leads the entire party-political spectrum with 22% (2024), i.e., among those young voters below 30, the AfD is the most-preferred party.

You may now ask yourself why state broadcasters would indicate a—naturally very bad—shift towards ‘the Right’ but omit how drastic this change has been since the current federal government consisting of SPD, Greens, and FDP took office in 2021.

At this point, we may now turn to Julia Ruhs’ op-ed before we continue this discussion in the bottom lines.

---

Suddenly Young People are a Problem—Because They are No Longer on the Left

‘Listen to the youth’, was the slogan a few years ago. They were exemplary in their support for more climate protection. And now? The under-30s think the AfD is good. The shocked response: more political education! Media skills! But it’s not young people who are the problem. It’s the politicians who let it get this far.

By Julia Ruhs, Focus, 5 May 2024 [source]

The youth of all people! The generation that skipped school for the climate just a few years ago now mostly thinks the AfD is great. This is shown by a new representative study that was published a few days ago. It asked Germany’s 14-29-year-olds about their political views.

A full 22% would vote for the AfD. Two years earlier, the figure was just 9%. The CDU/CSU still managed to gain 20%, which is also an increase. The Greens, on the other hand, lost a lot of ground, landing in third place with 18%. So it’s not just Greta [Thunberg] and Luisa [Neubauer, Germany’s leftist Greta Thunberg look-alike], my peers. And no traffic light fans either.

And that happens just when many people are demonstrating ‘against the right’

But that's not all. If you take a closer look, you will find another interesting fact: the authors of the study surveyed young people in January and February of all months. This was exactly when Correctiv’s remigration research [i.e., during ‘stupid Watergate’] was scaring up Germany’s media world and driving citizens concerned about democracy to ‘demonstrations against the right’. What did the youth do? They ticked the AfD box in the survey, seemingly unimpressed.

This is not the first time that my generation has been caught voting for the AfD. The state elections in Bavaria and Hesse last autumn already showed that the AfD performed strongly among voters under 30, more so than among the over-60s, who preferred to vote for the CDU/CSU. The Greens are now understandably worried about losing a much-loved electorate. And they are thinking aloud about how to bring the young back.

Green MP Kai Gehring, who is chairman of the education committee, had an unoriginal idea: political education in schools must be addressed, he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. He is calling for the curricula in all sixteen federal states to be adapted. They should be updated ‘to include teaching about the failure of the Weimar Republic, Hitler's rise to power, the Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Nazi dictatorship’, explained Gehring. This ‘more targeted political education’ is intended to help young people against right-wing extremism.

Once Again, German History is being Instrumentalised

The logic behind it: simply educate even better. If political education in schools is targeted enough, the AfD should reliably land at zero per cent among young people. Historical education is never wrong in principle, I think, but the logic is not entirely watertight [that’s perhaps the understatement of the month]. Because even with a curriculum update, one or two pupils could come to the conclusion that the political conditions back then are not the same as today. That there is currently no need to fear a new 1933 [do tell]. The AfD may be right-wing extremist in parts, but it is not the NSDAP. That the AfD is more like all the other right-wing populist parties in Europe. And that some Nazi comparisons tend to blatantly trivialise the National Socialist crimes of that time.

But what am I writing about, the Greens only mean well. It’s about our democracy, and according to the Greens, it’s in danger, so they like to instrumentalise the darkest chapter of German history as a political weapon [this is called—agit-prop, short for ‘agitation-propaganda’].

Green Party education politician Gehring is not the only one who believes that the AfD can be brought down with political and historical education [sic]. Louisa Charlotte Basner, Secretary General of the National Pupils’ Conference, would also like to see political education reformed. And she has another suggestion on how to get to grips with the ‘worrying shift to the right’ among young people: schools should teach more media skills. So that pupils learn where and how they can best inform themselves, she explains. In other words: those who inform themselves properly will also come out in the right [no pun intended, it seems] place when voting. So if political education at school is not targeted enough, then at least targeted media consumption should do the trick [when did it become an acceptable notion among self-declared ‘democracy defenders™’ to ensure only the ‘correct’ media content is consumed?].

What, then, to do? TikTok, for Starters

With elections coming up soon, time is short to put the world back in order politically [WTF? Also, I told you so; they did so, too, just re-read the above paragraphs]. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck are well aware of this. Because the curriculum update is a lengthy and hopeless endeavour—and another ‘protest against the right’ would probably not help either—the two have thought of something else: they are now on TikTok [a brilliant move; do check out their feeds here and here—thank me later]. After all, the AfD is the undisputed number one on the platform in terms of reach. And this is where the younger generation spends a lot of time. So the strategy is once again to communicate better, if necessary on TikTok [until the US will tell its vassals allies it’s all bad Chinese commie crap].

More social media is not wrong, but it’s not enough to win back the youth. Whether Olaf Scholz dances on Tiktok or not [see The Guardian’s coverage]—it doesn’t matter. The federal gov’t must tackle the problems. It must tackle the things that have turned young people into AfD sympathisers.

The youth study provides answers to the fears of the younger generation: they are mainly worried about inflation, war, expensive and scarce housing. The fear of economic crisis, poverty in old age, and a collapse of the pension system has also increased among 14-29-year-olds. The authors of the study say that young people have been plagued by a feeling of powerlessness since the coronavirus era. Work hard and you can afford a good life: young people no longer believe in this promise. The study documents ‘a deep-seated mental insecurity with a loss of confidence in the ability to influence personal and social living conditions’. The result is that young people are frustrated. Demotivated. Psychologically battered [we’re coming almost full circle here, for it was the federal gov’t whose economic and Covid policies are responsible for most of this ills].

Concerns about Even More Refugees [sic] Arriving

One topic in particular scored almost twice as high in the study’s ranking of concerns as in the previous year: worries about an increase in the flow of refugees. Study author Simon Schnetzer says this is because it’s also about money:

Because it’s so difficult for young people financially. Because they have the feeling that they don’t have enough themselves. That they have to do without.

The study actually illustrates the core of the problem very well: my generation is afraid that things are going downhill. Afraid that the peak of the good life is now over, but that as a young person you were only able to catch a few moments of it. Anxious of being born into a time in which diligence, the will to work, and sacrifice at work are only of limited help in getting what you dream of in life. Because circumstances have become unfavourable.

If Trust is Lost, You Have to Win it Back

So, my peers are not 22% right-wing radicals [spot the spin, or 18% left-wing radicals]. Nor are they xenophobes. But they are worried about the future and think—rightly so—that they are missing out [no need to address the core issue of in-migration or the insane drive towards war]. The government should give young people back their confidence in a secure pension, affordable housing, and a flourishing economy [is that truly the government’s role? Looks a bit like idolatry of ‘the state’ to me…]. In being able to build something in life.

If that succeeds, then no one will be interested in the AfD [no, they’ll happily vote for whatever muppet the Uniparty will nominate as paradise is just behind the state-centric = fascist rainbow]. Young people in particular usually have no fixed party affiliation, they vote one way or the other. Who knows, maybe the SPD will be cool again in a few years’ time. So the young generation is far from lost. But what it is above all at the moment is a good barometer for the political mood in the country.

---

Bottom Lines

Oh, my, what a piss-poor, deaf, blind, and stupid piece of ‘journalism’. Sadly, Ms. Ruhs isn’t mute, so to speak.

There are many problems, most of which are caused by the federal government, often working hand-in-glove with the EU Commission. These include, but aren’t limited to, blindly following the US’ Russophobia (mind you, I’m no fan of Mr. Putin’s), destroying the economy due to the so-called ‘Energy Transition’ (Energiewende), the delusional belief that sun and wind will be able to power an industrial base, the massive influx of migrants, courtesy of the UN and a definitely mis-guided humanitarianism, and the public policy fall-out, most notably the hand-outs to ‘refugees’ while making life increasingly hard for citizens.

There’s no need to talk about all of this, for whatever (cheap) talk is offered by the politicians and their willing camp followers in legacy media will be ignored—is ignored by ‘the young’. Hence the excellent polling data for AfD.

This brings us to the weirding of ‘party politics’ in contemporary Europe: wherever one cares to look, literally all parties are beholden to both US/NATO gaslighting and/or EU/Transatlantic ‘stakeholders’. There is, contrary to whatever party name—such as the ‘Alternative for Germany’—no true alternative. Neither the AfD on ‘the right’ nor Sahra Wagenknecht’s new Bündnis on ‘the left’ offers anything in terms of policies that benefits the German people.

Why, one may ask, at this point in time?

This is actually a relatively easy question to provide answers to: because it’s not in the interest of the German business elites and their paid political actors. Just take a look at the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis):

For the European Union and its Member States, Germany is a key trading partner: In 2021, Germany was the top destination for merchandise exports in 16 of the 27 other Member States. The Czech Republic traded more than one third (33%) of their exports with Germany. Austria (30%), Poland (29%), Hungary and Luxembourg (each 27%) also dispatched a very large proportion of their exports to Germany.

That, however, is but one side of this issue, for the associated question remains: if Germans, due to the active sabotage of its economy by the current gov’t won’t consume all these goods, where do they go?

Germany’s most common destination for goods is a non-EU country: Germany’s leading exports trade partner are the United States (9% in 2021). The goods exported to the US were mainly machinery and transport equipment (53%), followed by chemicals and related products (23%). The United States was also the main export destination for one other EU states: Ireland (31%) also exported a higher share of their goods to the United States than to any other country.

While I remain a bit unsure about Ireland—I didn’t check specifically if these exports would also include non-tangible goods, such as ‘IT services’—we may thus summarise the function of Germany within the EU/EEC system:

German business elites are directing a conduit known as ‘Germany’ to suck a lot of goods out of the Single European Market, which is transferred (‘exported’) to the United States and elsewhere outside the EU/EEC system. Note that the US (and other non-European recipients) pay for real goods and services rendered with US$, which aren’t real currency but in reality de facto IOUs issued by a mother of all public-private partnerships, the US Federal Reserve system.

In other words: US elites enjoy what is called ‘seignorage’, the benefits of issuing the global reserve currency—which specifically include the massive ‘discount’, so to speak, of ‘printing money’, which today is mostly 0s and 1s on a computer screen—to acquire real goods, services, and assets. A bigger looting operation the world has never seen.

None of these insights appear in public discourse on this side of the Atlantic, though, for they might trigger a violent backlash.

In Berlin, to drive home this point, the Social Democrats in Berlin are campaigning with a cap on Döner street food prices of 3 euros:

‘The kebab is something highly political’, says Frederic Augustin in an interview with [SPD party newspaper] Vorwärts. The 26-year-old Social Democrat from Berlin is running in the European elections in June and says he wants to tailor his election campaign to Generation Z, which essentially comprises most first-time voters. A social media trend is currently circulating among them, calling on prominent politicians to limit the price of a kebab to three euros.

Talk about shilling for Döner sellers while Germany is burning…