"... Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism. It must be added that Fascism cannot be anything else but an expression of contempt without denying itself. ..."

• Albert Camus

Political contempt is a very relatable feeling to the younger generations. The system feels broken and difficult to fix, thanks to the expensiveness of the electoral process.

I 100% believe there is a growing segment of the population of young white boys who are becoming radicalized. They see a world that is crumbling just like everyone else, but they have been shunned by the Left, and seemingly every other day the world's problems are being blamed on them for some reason. Many of these folks feel like society is pushing them out and see that right wing extremist groups are accepting them. They keep hearing that racism and sexism is bad, and yet racism and sexism against white males somehow seems to be perfectly acceptable.

This is the exact type of exclusionary tactics that pushed so many post WW1 Germans into supporting the Nazi party right before WW2.

For years I've been hearing that Republicans are only old rich white men and that once they all eventually die, the GOP will be toast. Except that's not true at all. Google image search the Proud Boys and tell me those guys are old. And there is that other group that wears the tan khakis (can't think of their name). None of those people look older than 30.

This is a big problem that will only get worse.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Social media was recently abuzz with a survey that shows 12th-grade boys (who are aged 17 or 18) are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative v liberal.

The numbers showing young men becoming conservative come from the 2022 Monitoring the Future study, a respected annual survey looking at American adolescents that began in 1975.

This got the jubilant attention of a bunch of high-profile rightwingers, such as Steve Bannon and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the conservative media personality and fiancee of Donald Trump Jr.

Some rightwing influencers, such as Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative youth group Turning Point USA, used the chart as proof that their outreach to high school kids (or, as some might describe it, “brainwashing”) was working.

There is certainly a lot to be said about how young men are drifting to the right – or, in many cases, how they are being pushed there by misogynistic conservative influencers such as Andrew Tate and Ben Shapiro.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Yea people just feel hopeless, and I don't blame them when the system is literally rigged.

Self interest rules here. It is in most young peoples interest to just say fuck it, for their own well being and mental health, head in the sand and try to survive. What else to do? Corporate profit rules, and slavery is written into the constitution.

Through this same path of apathy I was able to find myself, and my own path forward, and here I am posting ramblings on lemmy. But I'm glad I'm not growing up today quite frankly, and im glad i had the people and friends I did. I was raised on punk rock lol.

If there is an uptick in conservatism, and or apathy it's in large part to the sense of self depreciation that's instilled in us, as well as that ever present streak of contrarianism in youth coupled with the disaster that is our education system and unhealthy use of social media.

Polarization and Apathy are a feature of the political and economic system it would seem to me. But I'm just a self depreciating uneducated idiot, with my own fair share of apathy.

That kid 100% looks like he'd tell me to go frick myself, while "flicking" me off with his ring finger.

Sorry, OP, but this is a garbage op-ed. It offers very little information about, much less insight into the study in question, meaning mostly the article just serves to give the author a chance to express her political slant via pejorative adjectives towards right-wing groups. The fact that I happen to agree with her slant doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a good article.

I for one think it’s a phenomenon worth investigating further, this question of why young men in particular are saying they feel alienated from both political parties. I don’t know, but I strongly suspect the extent to which Democrats embrace increasingly exclusionary and misandrist slogans created by feminists is part of it.

Feminism is very important for women’s rights, but I’ve realized as I’ve grown up that the movement’s leaders have absolutely zero interest in policing their man-hating radicals. Whenever said radicals are brought up—even when it’s in a mainstream context—feminists are quick to dismiss them and claim it’s unfair to judge the movement by their statements. To which my response is: if you can’t be bothered to keep their misandrist talking points out of your mainstream discourse, then I have no reason to believe they’re as fringe as you say, much less that you actually disagree with them.

To the extent that democrats either embrace or tolerate this kind of talk (and they do), I can easily see how a teenage boy who leans liberal would hesitate to identify as such when they hear liberal mouthpieces pushing language and concepts that either demonize, exclude, or minimize men. It’s a problem the Democrats have not taken seriously, and I sincerely hope they start to, because the Right is eager to capitalize on it.

When future prospects are dead or fading, people get radicalized. Or I guess reactionary is the more accurate term.

It's really stupid to confuse the fascism of the modern American right and conservatism.