What Can Republicans Learn from the Success of European Conservatives in Attracting Young Voters?

 

One of the most significant and underreported political events of recent years is the changing nature of youth politics.  In places as diverse as India, Canada, Japan and the United States, younger voters are increasingly supportive of conservative- and libertarian-leaning political parties and candidates. 

The growing interest in conservatism among the young was evident in the June European Parliamentary elections.  Strong support and heavy turnout by younger voters enabled conservative parties to make large gains. 

This post covers three topics. First, what happened in the EU elections and what was the role of younger voters in the conservative surge?  Second, what do Europe’s conservative parties stand for?  And third, what can the Republican party in the United States draw from the European’s success in attracting young voters? 

What happened in June?

Conservative parties gained forty seats in the 720 members EU parliament.  Their gains aren’t large enough to take control.  However, conservative gains will give them greater ability to shape EU policy in a wide range of areas including economics, immigration, energy and foreign policy. 

The conservative showing was particularly strong in France and Germany, the two largest EU nations in terms of both population and economic output.  France’s National Rally gained seven and now controls the largest single block, 30 seats, out of that country’s 81-member delegation. Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble and The Environmentalists, a green party, were crushed.  In Germany, gains by the Alternative for Germany advanced that party from fourth to second place in terms of the number of seats controlled in the largest EU delegation. 

Instrumental in conservative gains were younger voters.  Political observer Yascha Mounk highlights the role of young voters in the success of conservative parties in the EU election.

“Remarkably, these developments are fueled, not slowed, by young voters. In Poland, a plurality of voters under the age of 30 supported the far-right Konfederacja. In France, the National Rally did a little better among voters under the age of 35 than it did in the population as a whole. In Germany, the young are now significantly more likely to vote for the far right than the old, with the AfD outpolling the Greens among those who are younger than 25.”

What do the European conservative parties stand for?

One of the main differences between politics in the European Union and the United States is that the EU’s proportional representation system allows many more parties to obtain seats in a legislative body that the first-past-the post system in the United States.  While the United States has two major parties, several dozen different parties are represented in the EU parliament.  Most of these parties have joined one of seven different coalitions though some act on their own. 

While conservative parties are often derided as “far right”, most Americans would find a lot to like in the platforms of Identity and Democracy or the European Conservative and Reformists, the largest conservative blocks, or the Alternative for Germany, the largest group of independents. 

One reason that conservatives are so often derided in the media is that EU politics are far to the left of those in the United States.  One measure of how far left EU politics are is that the “centrist” block in parliament consists of a coalition of establishment parties and self-described socialists.  Pundits rarely dispense the same opprobrium to parties of the left which include many former communists and anti-capitalist parties. 

Another is that news media in Europe have strong financial incentive to support ruling parties.  Unlike the United States, in which most media is privately owned and funded, state run media is common in Europe and private media organizations in most European countries receive substantial direct or indirect financial support from their governments.  Government ownership and funding provides an incentive for media to provide ruling parties with favorable coverage and disparage the opposition.

The European conservatives mostly share the following positions: 

• Conservative parties tend to view open border immigration as a security issue and oppose unfettered mass migration into the EU. 
• Conservative parties tend to be more supportive of the continued use of fossil fuels and oppose net-zero policies for carbon emissions.
• Conservative parties opposed the most extreme COVID lockdown measures.
• Conservative parties either oppose or have taken a more moderate stance toward the continuation of the NATO/Ukraine war with Russia.  

The views of the conservative parties on economics are more heterodox.  Writing in Intereconomics, Philip Ruthgrab provides a thoughtful summary of their range of positions of the conservative parties.

•  Conservative parties tend to be pro-business and seek to reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on their domestic private sectors. 
• Conservative parties generally want more national autonomy over economic decision making.  Party positions range between those seeking greater flexibility within the EU to those seeking outright exit as Britain voted to do in 2020. 
•       Some want EU member states to strictly adhere to EU fiscal rules on deficit spending while others want more fiscal flexibility.

In short, the range of opinion of the European conservatives on most issues is broadly similar to the positions of the Republican Party in the United States. 

What does this mean for Trump and the Republican Party? 

What did the European conservatives do to woo young voters, and can the Republican Party do the same in the United States?  Here are three takeaways from the EU elections for the GOP. 

1. Don’t back down when attacked. 

Europe’s conservative parties have not backed down from attacks from establishment politicians and the elite media. 

Europe’s conservative parties have also been subject to political persecutions like those waged by the Democrats against Donald Trump.  Germany’s AfD has been subject to ongoing harassment by the security state.  Establishment politicians in Germany have gone so far as to suggest banning the AfD, Germany’s second largest political party. 

The attacks on conservative parties have been ineffective in part due to the unpopularity of the establishment parties.  Some 70 percent of Germans and two-thirds of the French disapprove of the performance of their current governments.

Rhetorical attacks and lawfare of the establishment elites are seen by many young people as an attempt to silence their critics and deflect from the failures of the governing parties.  As the 25-year-old Bence Szabó from Hungary told the BBC,   “Everything coming from the right is being demonized, but we can actually solve the issues that the left tried to solve - and failed.”

Harassment and persecution of political opponents is decidedly undemocratic and authoritarian.  It makes the EU look like a banana republic writ large, albeit with espresso rather than coffee. 

2. Understand the concerns of the young  

Conservative parties also emphasized issues that have a major impact on the economic and physical well-being of young people.  These include inflation, crime, the COVID lockdowns, and the high cost of housing. 

Basic economic concerns were a motivating factor for Lazar Potrebic, a 25-year-old from Serbia. He told the BBC “We are not extremists. We are just angry. We feel like our needs are not being met. People our age are taking really important life steps. We're getting our first jobs, thinking about starting a family…but if you look around Europe, rent prices are going through the roof - and it’s hard to get work.”

Young Europeans are particularly concerned with two issues where the conservatives sharply differ with the establishment parties and the parties of the left: mass immigration and the war in Ukraine. 

One is immigration.  Young people feel the effects of Europe’s open borders policies more acutely than the old.  In a widely circulated post, Boris Palmer, mayor of the city of Tübingen in Germany, explains why:

“[young Germans] experience what irregular migration means on a daily basis,” Palmer wrote on Facebook on Monday.  “Above all, the young men who have arrived alone are changing the living environment of young people. In the park, in the club, on the street, on the bus, at the train station, in the schoolyard.” 

The war in Ukraine also weighed heavily on the minds of young Europeans who don’t want their nation or themselves to be dragged into another world war. In early 2022, the war in Ukraine replaced climate as the top concern of young Germans. Since then, young Germans have been in what some observers have termed a “permanent crisis mode.” The AfD’s Maximilian Krah put the war in terms young people can understand in a TikTok video:

"The war in Ukraine is not your war. Zelenskyy is not your president. … But this is costing you money and you are running the risk that Germany gets dragged into this war, otherwise you will have to go and fight on the eastern front where your grandfather's brothers and cousins lost their lives…",

In contrast to the AfD, Germany’s Green party has been the most enthusiastic supporter greater escalation of the war with Russia.

3. Harness the power of social media.

Young people are more likely than the old to get their information from social media. Conservative gains among younger voters in part to skillful use of social media by conservative parties. 

In contrast to Europe, the Republican party and Republican politicians in the United States lag far behind the Democrats in the use of social media to connect with voters.  there are some exceptions, the most noteworthy of which is Donald Trump. 

Social media allows political figures to sweep aside gatekeepers in the media and communicate directly with voters.  Young people appreciate the frankness of direct connections. 

The German news outlet Deutsche Weil characterized the conservative Alternative for Germany as the TikTok Party.  “The AfD reaches as many young people in Germany on TikTok as all the other parties combined. Traditional parties in Germany have so far done little to counter the AfD and its modern social media strategy.”

The same is true of France’s National Rally whose president, Jordan Bardella, is just 28 years old.  Bardella’s TikTok channel is filled with clips of him speaking directly to viewers, or at rallies and debates, as well as doing ordinary things like enjoying a chocolate or having a glass of wine.  It is working.  Bardella has 1.7 million followers and his videos have garnered over 40 million likes, 5 million more than the TikTok channel of President of France. 

The Hill: Why Biden is losing young Democrats like me

 Jeremy Etelson writes in The Hill why young Democrats are abandoning Biden.  Etelson is a former College Democrats chapter president and campaign staffer for Democrats.  

He explains why young voters including young Democrats like him are walking away from Joe Biden:

Biden is currently sitting on top of a seismic shift in the political parties’ voting coalitions. His average approval rating under 38 percent unfortunately is historically low for a president at this time in a first term. In 2020, Biden won young voters by 25 points.

Now disapproval of Biden is widespread among young voters, with him losing 18–29 year-olds and all under-45 voters when polled against all general election candidates. The dissent is not baseless, and not all young dissenters are doing so because of American support for Israel’s war against Hamas. Beyond Biden’s personal cognitive challenges, his administration’s policies are having indefensible consequences.

The United States is now entrenched in numerous international conflicts, each of which is increasingly dangerous and more complicated than a good-versus-evil narrative. Biden is largely responsible for escalating the Russia-Ukraine war, funding Ukraine through their incremental defeat while ignoring diplomatic negotiation and ceasefire offers. Biden has also allowed the funding of Iran throughout their proxy war against American and our Middle East allies. Meanwhile, North Korea has abandoned the decades-long reconciliation process with South Korea, following our escalation of multilateral military exercises in the region. Nuclear world war is now more probable than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

At home, the future looks dire for middle-class and low-income Americans. Most people worry about how we’ll deal with this historic inflation and the mounting federal debt. Rent prices are still above pre-pandemic levels, and half of all Americans now spend more than one third of their income on rent. Homelessness also spiked from 2022 to 2023 to the highest level since 2006. Each of these issues is even more alarming when considering this year’s expansion of BRICS, an informal coalition of emerging nations, and their increasing movement away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  

In the meantime, an imminent national security risk has been generated by the border crisis. U.S. Customs and Border Protection have encountered at least 8.1 million people unlawfully crossing the southwest border since 2021, which is all in addition to the estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants who were already in the country when Biden took office.

Biden's policies have been a disaster for young Americans.  

Biden's massive spending programs, the skyrocketing debt, his anti-growth economic policies and his foreign wars are going to burden young Americans for decades to come.  

Donald Trump and the 2024 Youth Vote

Young Americans are warming to the idea of a second Trump presidency.  Trump in 2024 is more popular with younger voters than ever.

This article examines the political preferences of young Americans as reflected in the Youth Poll conducted by The Institute of Politics at Harvard University.  Harvard’s Youth Poll provides a high-quality picture of the views of young Americans.  The poll has been conducted every Spring and Fall since 2003 and many questions repeat between waves.  Respondents are limited to Americans between the ages of 18 and 29.  Sample sizes are larger than the typical 500-1000 respondents in the typical political opinion poll.  The margin of error in the Harvard Youth Poll is 3 percent or less.  

The tables below contain the results of Harvard Polls taken in the Spring of each election year.  The fieldwork dates and the sample sizes appear in a table at the end of this note.

Youth Poll results show that young Americans are much more likely in 2024 to plan to cast a vote for Donald Trump than they were at the same point in the 2016 election and marginally more likely  than in 2020.  The eight point difference in Trump support between 2016 and 2024 is statistically significant at the 95 percent level.      

In contrast, support for Biden has collapsed.  The share of young adults planning to vote for Joe Biden in November is 14 percentage points lower in 2024 than in 2020.  Biden is now just 7 points ahead of Trump (38 percent to 31 percent) compared to 22 points at the same time in 2020.  

A larger share of young Americans are undecided in 2024 than at the same point in the 2016 or 2020 election cycles.  The growth of undecideds almost exactly matches the decline in support for Biden.  The high share of undecided young adults presents a huge opportunity for Donald Trump and the Republicans.  In 2024, 41 million members of Gen Z (ages 18 to 27) will be eligible to vote.  The ability to attract young voters to the Republican ticket over the next six months could well make the difference to the outcome of the coming election. 

Young Trump supporters are much more enthusiastic about their candidate than young Biden supporters.  According to the Harvard Youth Poll, 68 percent of young Trump supporters are enthusiastic about their candidate, an increase of 17 percentage points since 2020.  

Enthusiasm for Biden has collapsed since 2020.  Just over two in five young Biden supporters–42 percent–are enthusiastic about their candidate, a decline of 17 percentage points since 2020.  

Other results in the 2024 Harvard Poll suggests that it will be difficult for Biden to close the enthusiasm gap.  For one, a majority of young adults–56 percent–tell Harvard that they don’t follow politics closely.  Second, young people are overwhelmingly negative about the current direction of the country.  In the 2024 poll, just 9 percent saw the United States as headed in the right direction.  Third, Biden’s student debt bailout plans are of interest to just a small sliver of the young electorate.  Just 26 percent of young adults overall consider student debt relief an important issue.  Results are little different among independents (26 percent important) and young adults in battleground states (27 percent important).  Fourth, unanticipated events over the next six months are unlikely to rally young voters to Biden.  Just 26 percent expressed confidence in the 2024 survey regarding Biden’s ability to lead in a crisis.  

Lack of enthusiasm for Biden and the high share of young adults that are undecided presents an enormous opportunity for Donald Trump and other Republicans.  

Should Trump and Republican candidates make an effort to present solutions to the top concerns of young Americans –inflation, jobs, and the high cost of living–in terms that resonate with them, they could easily find enough votes to win the Presidency and one or both houses of Congress.    

Republicans should not ignore the 40 million members of Gen Z who will be eligible to vote in 2024, about half of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time.  Despite the growing youth support for Donald Trump, Republicans have done little to connect to this vital demographic group.  A good start would be to document exactly how young Americans would benefit from the Republican platform and economic agenda.          

Intergenerational Progress: Stagnant or Just Slowing Down?

 

Parents want their children to prosper.  However, there’s an increasing sense that young Americans today are not as financially well-off as previous generations were in the same stage of life.  Whether Americans are continuing to progress from generation to generation has become the subject of a growing literature in economics and other social sciences.    

Research by Chetty (2014, 2017) found that intergenerational progress had largely stopped, that inflation-adjusted earnings of the typical (median) young American is no higher than that of his or her parents at the same age.  This conclusion has been challenged by Twenge (2023) and others who argue that young people today are materially better off than their parents.

The most recent high-quality study to take a crack at this question is Kevin Corinth (AEI) and Jeff Larrimore’s (Federal Reserve Board) 2024 paper.  Their study draws on data from the Current Population Survey to measure the income of couples and households over the sixty-year period from 1964 to 2023.  The focus is on adults in their prime earning years (ages 36 to 40). 

Economies and societies are dynamic.  Studies of economic and social change over time always entail difficulties as researchers try to identify the factors driving observed changes: labor force participation, education, social policy, etc.  The authors don’t try to offer a definitive explanation of the factors driving changes in income between generations.  Rather, they present several sensitivity tests which invite readers to be introspective and to sort it out on their own.  This contributes to the enjoyment of the paper.   

Corinth and Larrimore’s results are in a middle ground between Chetty and Twenge.  Corinth and Lattimore find that the rate of income growth between generations has slowed down but, unlike Chetty, progress has not stopped entirely.  Every generation is doing better than the preceding one.  However, the largest gains have accrued to those at the top of the income distribution and the highly educated.  This is consistent with previous work that documents the growth of income inequality in American society. 

Millennials have often been characterized as an unlucky generation having experienced two deep economic downturns in early adulthood.  However, Corinth and Larrimore find that Gen X is the unluckiest generation.  Gen X median income growth is the lowest of any generation, less than 10 percent in terms of market income.  By contrast, Millennial income growth is several percentage points higher though still in the low teens.  Figure 2 from their paper illustrates.  Note that the difference in earnings at each age is growing smaller with each succeeding generation

For me, the most interesting aspect of their work concerned the difference in income growth when measured in terms of market income versus a post-tax, post-transfer basis.  Gen X and the Millennials income growth is several points higher when measured on a post-tax, post-transfer basis.  Silent and Boomer income growth was not.  One can speculate that this is due to the enactment of fiscal policies over the last two decades that emphasize tax cuts along with increased social spending all of which are financed through government borrowing.  Deterioration in America’s fiscal position is going to make it more difficult for future generations to enjoy increases in purchasing power due to tax cuts and growth in transfer spending. 

The authors briefly touch on the economic condition of Gen Zers in their study.  Gen Z is too young for their focal age range (36-40).  The oldest Gen Z in 2023 was 27 years of age.  However, their study shows the rise in dependency on parental support in each succeeding generation (as measured by the proportion of members dependent on parents for 50 percent or more of their income).  The authors find that parental support is the only reason that younger Millennials (30 and below) had higher incomes than Gen Xers.  That is, market incomes for those 30 and under have been stagnant which contributes to the perception that intergenerational progress has stalled.  In this regard, their findings are similar to Chetty’s. 

Young Germans Shifting to the Conservative Parties

 

A new survey shows a growing affection for conservative parties among young Germans.  Like young Americans who increasingly find a second Trump presidency more attractive than four more years of the failures of Joe Biden, young Germans are finding a lot to like in the economic program and immigration platform of the three major right-of-center parties in Germany. 

The conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now the most popular of Germany’s multiple political parties among German’s between 14 and 29 with 22 percent support according to the findings of the 2024 Jugend in Deutschland a survey. 

The AfD is the closest thing in Germany to the MAGA wing of the Republican Party in the United States.  The AfD’s economic program calls for deregulation and less state control of industry.  The AfD seeks a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine.  And the AfD opposes Germany’s open borders immigration policies. 

The second most popular party among young Germans according to Jugend in Deutschland is the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) with 20 percent support.  The CDU/CSU most closely resembles the establishment Republicans in the United States. 

The pro-business Free Democratic party get 8 percent support among young Germans. 

In total, 50 percent of young Germans support the three pro-economic freedom parties. 

In contrast, only 35 percent of young Germans support the three parties of the left on economic policy.  The Greens have 18 percent support, the Socialists 12 percent and the former communists 5 percent. 

Young Germans are drawn to conservative parties because of their messages on economic policies and immigration according to Klaus Hurrelmann, a Professor of Public Health and Education at the Hertie School in Berlin, who was interviewed by the European Conservative. 

“The assumption that young people are left-wing is wrong. We can speak of a clear shift to the right among the young population. … The AfD has clearly succeeded in presenting itself as a protest party for the traffic lights and as a problem-solver for current concerns.”

Among the chief concerns for young people is not climate change, LGBTQ rights, or gender ideology, as the mainstream globalist press might have it, but rising costs and a lower standard of living due to inflation (65%), the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East (60%), and overpriced and scarce housing (54%).

Young Germans turned out heavily for freedom-oriented political parties in the previous German election in response to the COVID lockdowns and the country’s rising pension debts. 

 

Gen Z Carries More Credit Card Debt

 

Members of Generation Z are increasingly relying on credit card debt to make ends meet. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the average credit card balance of 22-to-24-year-olds in the United States is $2,834 based on data from TransUnion, a credit dent reporting agency.  Debt levels are almost 30 percent higher than in 2013 after adjusting for inflation.  

The result is an increase in financial stress among Gen Zs.

Younger people with higher debt are more delinquent on credit-card payments and need to rely on family for help if they lose their job, say economists and financial advisers. They also often delay life milestones, including homeownership and marriage, say the economists.

“This is a generation that is feeling financial stress in a more acute way than millennials did a decade ago,” said Charlie Wise, head of global research at TransUnion.

Some of the factors driving the rise in credit card debt.

1. Rising rents.  Young people tend to be renters.  Apartment rents are on a tear.  From March 2020 to March 2024, apartments rents are up by 22 percent according to data from the BLS. 

2. Salaries are stagnant.  According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the median salary of a new college graduate in 2024 was $60,000, little changed form the inflation adjusted median of $58,858 in 2020. 

3. Interest rates are much higher today than just two years ago.  High rates on credit card debt make it more difficult to chip away on principal balances.   

4. Doom spending to relieve stress. 

The result is a generation of young people that increasingly fret about money.  A recent study by the accounting firm Ernst and Young found that 52 percent of young Americans are concerned about not having enough money. 

Most Millennials, Gen Zs Not Able to Save in Today’s Economy

 

A new survey from the National Endowment for Financial Education (NAFE) reveals the truly dire nature of the financial situation of young people in America today.

When asked how well the statement “I am just getting by financially” describes their current situation, 71 percent of Gen Zs (18 to 29 year-olds) said that statement describes their financial situation at least “somewhat well” and one in four said that statement describes their situation completely or very well. 

The financial situation of Millennials (30 to 44 year-olds) is just as bad.  Almost one in three—31 percent—of Millennials said that just getting by describes their financial situation completely or very well and another 34 percent said “somewhat well.”

Among those 45 and over, a still very high 57 percent said “just getting by” describes their situation at least somewhat well. 

Saving requires the ability to put some money away at the end of the month.  Saving is particularly important for young people who should be accumulating assets to meet important life goals like getting married, buying a home, or helping children pay for a college education.

Most young Americans are having difficulty meeting their immediate expenses. 

The NAFE survey found that only 29 percent of Gen Zs and 36 percent of Millennials were able to save consistently; they always had some money left over at the end of the month.

By comparison, 38 percent of Gen Zs and 37 percent of Millennials never or rarely had any money left over at the end of the month.  

The inability of younger Gen Zs to save may be due to college costs.  Older Gen Zs and Millennials, however, are in their prime earning years and many do not have children to provide for.

Most young people that are not able to save now may never be able to.  A study of the lifetime earnings of five million Americans by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that for the median American, earnings stagnate between 35 and 55. 

The result is that large numbers of Americans have little hope for their financial future. 

The NEFE survey asked whether respondents agreed with the following statement “I feel like I will never have the things I want in life.”

Fifty-nine percent of Gen Zs and Millennials at least somewhat agreed that they would never have the things that they want in life. 

And when asked whether they ‘were concerned that the money they had or will save won’t last,” 72 percent of Gen Zs as well as 72 percent of Millennials were at least somewhat concerned their savings would run out.

 

 

Scott Galloway: Young People are Opting Out

Analysis Correct:  Prof G says the economy is broken for young people.  I've been blogging about this for over a decade now.  The answer: economic freedom.  

Falling Behind: Financial Expert Shows Real Earnings of College Graduates Lower Than in 1983

Financial expert Robert Gill estimates that to live as well as one's parents (or grandparents) did in 1983 earning $30,000 a year, at today's prices one would have to earn $162,342.  

That's a 441 percent increase.

Compare that to the change in earnings of new college graduates in 1983 and 2023.  

The average earnings of a new college graduate in 1983: $17,700

The average earnings of a new college graduate in 2023: $58,862

Earnings of new college graduates are up just 246% 

Or think of it this way.  If $30,000 a year was what a family needed to live comfortably in 1983, a new college graduate earned 59 percent of that.  A new graduate with an engineering degree ($24,100 a year) could almost support a middle class family.

Today, it's impossible with one, oftentimes two, college graduates working full time as the earnings of new grads ($58,862) are just 36 percent of $2,342.   

  

Jonathan Turley: A Majority of Stanford Students Support Canceling Conservative Speakers

 

I've blogged before that the biggest problem that America faces is that our elites don't believe in American values such as free speech, individual liberty or the free enterprise system.  

Jonathan Turley's April 19 column provides more evidence of the elite disdain for these American values. 

Stanford University is at the very top of the hierarchy of American higher education.  Holders of Stanford diploma are well represented among those in  top government jobs, in the tech sector, and on Wall Street.  So what Stanford students and grads think matters a lot. 

According to a recent survey by FIRE, Stanford students have little tolerance for those with views other than their own. 

Last year Stanford students shouted down Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School.  Instead of defending the Judge, Law School Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach criticized the Judge for appearing and sided with the students disrupting his speech.  Oh the irony!

Turley writes of the findings of FIRE's 2024 survey of the views of Stanford students regarding free speech:  

FIRE released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.

Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shutdown a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.

75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.

Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors.

The survey is consistent with other surveys and polling in higher education.

The early years of adulthood play a critical role in the formation of our attitudes toward ourselves, others and society at large.  That so many young Americans have closed themselves off to other opinions is disturbing.  That such intolerance is especially widespread among the elites bodes ill for the future of America.

Though framed in terms of consideration of those with different view on political questions, the intolerance displayed by Stanford students is unlikely to be contained to the political realm.

As rising generations today assume leadership roles in American institutions, intolerance of others is also likely to be reflected in the nature of business dealings, in the administration of government, in medical treatment, in foreign policy and in personal and marital relations.  The result: more failures of business judgement, more wasteful public expenditure, more medical errors, more war and regional conflict, and more unhappy marriages and personal relationships.         

John Stuart Mill wrote about the role of free thought and speech in human progress:

It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those which they are familiar. ...  Such communication has always been, and is peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.  (Principles of Political Economy, 1848) 

Higher education has traditionally been viewed as a means for the advancement of human progress.  Today, in many ways, it is the reverse.  The intolerant attitudes acquired and reinforced through one's time on the campuses of Stanford and other elite universities are a barrier to human progress.  A barrier to progress created by the universities themselves and the faculty and administrators that run them.    

        

Slouching Towards 1984

 

The US House of Representatives voted 273-147 last week to extend the many tenacles of the surveillance state by forcing businesses as mundane as fitness centers or hardware stores to assist the NSA in warrantless searches of US citizens.

The founders would be aghast. 

The framers of the United States Constitution were so concerned that the government would intrude on the private lives of citizens that they wrote a prohibition on warrantless searches of persons and property into Article 4 the Constitution.  Article 4 states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yet warrantless searches of the electronic communications of US citizens is exactly what this bill allows. 

Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center explained in a series of posts on Twitter/X

I’ll explain how this new power works. Under current law, the government can compel “electronic communications service providers” that have direct access to communications to assist the NSA in conducting Section 702 surveillance.

In practice, that means companies like Verizon and Google must turn over the communications of the targets of Section 702 surveillance. (The targets must be foreigners overseas, although the communications can—and do—include communications with Americans.)

Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of “electronic communications surveillance provider,” an amendment offered by House intel committee (HPSCI) leaders and passed by the House vastly expands the universe of entities that can be compelled to assist the NSA.

If the bill becomes law, any company or individual that provides ANY service whatsoever may be forced to assist in NSA surveillance, as long as they have access to equipment on which communications are transmitted or stored—such as routers, servers, cell towers, etc. That sweeps in an enormous range of U.S. businesses that provide wifi to their customers and therefore have access to equipment on which communications transit. Barber shops, laundromats, fitness centers, hardware stores, dentist’s offices… the list goes on and on. 

It also includes commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every day—offices of journalists, lawyers, nonprofits, financial advisors, health care providers, and more.

Ron Paul explains how the National Security Agency and other elements of the surveillance states have used loopholes in Section 702 to conduct surveillance of US citizens.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who was a 702 target. Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target. This Section 702 loophole has been used so often to subject Americans to warrantless wiretapping that it has been referred to as the surveillance state’s crown jewel.

Section 702 has already been widely abused by the NSA, FBI and other spying agencies.  Just last year court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly searched for information on US citizens 278,000 times including searches for information on January 6 defendants and the killing of George Floyd. 

Young Americans should be particularly concerned.  It’s no fun to be watched by the government all the time.  Just ask Chinese dissidents like When Chen. 

When Chen picked up his phone to vent his anger at getting a parking ticket, his message on WeChat was a drop in the ocean of daily posts on China's biggest social network.  But soon after his tirade against "simple-minded" traffic cops in June, he found himself in the tentacles of the communist country's omniscient surveillance apparatus.  Chen quickly deleted the post, but officers tracked him down and detained him within hours, accusing him of "insulting the police".  He was locked up for five days for "inappropriate speech".

George Orwell wrote of the dangers of mass surveillance in Nineteen Eighty Four.  His 1949 novel was intended as a warning of how the surveillance state would crush the individual and free thought.  Unfortunately, in modern Washington, Orwell’s novel is more like a “how-to” manual.   

 

 

 

Five Signs Biden’s Economic Policies Have Been a Disaster

 

Young Americans today are experiencing a replay of the economic problems that their parents and grandparents experienced in the 1970s: Stagflation.  Stagflation is the combination of tepid economic growth and rapidly rising prices. 

Both low growth and high inflation are a direct result of the policies of the Biden Administration.

Biden’s high tax and oppressive regulatory policies have throttled economic activity. 

At the same time, his massive spending programs and deficits have showered special interests with cash. 

The result: negligible economic growth, diminished employment opportunities, rising prices and high interest rates. 

Here’s five pieces of evidence that demonstrate that Joe Biden’s economic policies have hurt young  Americans 

1. Small business confidence at lowest level in 11 years.

Young people are more likely to work at smaller firms than are older workers.  The National Federation of Independent Business survey shows that small business owners are more pessimistic than at any time since 2013.  That includes the pandemic years where many small businesses failed during the shutdowns.  Also note how small business confidence soared during the Trump years. 

 

2. No full-time jobs have been created in the past 14 months

Job opportunities are particularly important for new graduates and younger workers looking to switch jobs.  The number of full-time jobs in the United States is same as 14 months ago and the number of full-time jobs has crashed in the last six months according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

 

3. No signs of a Federal Reserve rate cut

High interest rates make it difficult for young people to buy a home,.  The average rate on a 30-year home mortgage is over 7.5 percent.  Expectations for a rate cut in 2024 have evaporated as investors no longer view the federal Reserve as able to bring inflation under control.  According to Reuters:

“Expectations for how deeply and how soon the Fed will cut rates have shifted rapidly over the last few months, as investors grow increasingly doubtful that policymakers will be able to lower borrowing costs without sparking an inflationary rebound in a strong economy. The Fed has projected it will cut rates by 75 basis points this year.”

4. Food prices have risen by almost 40 percent since 2019.

Food is a larger share of total spending by lower income and younger households.  The increase in food prices has far outstripped wage growth.  Have your earnings increased by 40 percent since 2019?

 

5. More Americans see their financial situation getting worse

or the first time since the Federal Reserve began collecting data in 2014, a majority of Americans see their personal financial situation as worse than the previous year.  This again is a stark contrast to the Trump years in which Americans saw their situation getting better each year. 

 

Bonus: the 2020s are so bad that Americans now long for the 1970s!

 

Gen Z Culture Roundup

 

Gen Z is facing early 'mid-life crisis' due to social media, US Surgeon General warns  

Gen Z Rudest Generation Ever  

Gen Z: bad office etiquette might be holding you back at work

I’m Gen Z and proud NOT to work – I’ve quit three jobs because bosses don’t give me gym breaks… I won’t be a victim

Survey Says Gen Z Workforce Is Toxic, 'Least Reliable' — And That's Just The Start

Canada: RCMP report warns Canadians may revolt once they realize how broke they are

 What's the result of nine years of the left wing government of Justin Trudeau?  National collapse according to a report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  The RCMP's report was obtained by Canada's National Post via an open records request.  The report is highly redacted so one can only assume that the parts that are taken out are even more dire than that which remained.  

The report states: "The coming period of recession will … accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations" and that "[e]conomic forecasts for the next five years and beyond are bleak."

The Post adds more detail on Canada's dire economic situation and how high housing costs--higher relative to incomes than the United States--mean that young Canadians are unlikely to ever afford to buy a house.

In terms of declining living standards and inaccessible home ownership, the RCMP’s warnings are indeed in line with available statistics.

Canadian productivity — measured in terms of GDP per capita — has been trending downwards since at least the 1980s. But this has accelerated dramatically in recent years — even as per-worker productivity rises in many of our peer countries.

An analysis last year by University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe found that if Canada had merely kept pace with U.S. productivity growth for the last five years, Canadian per-capita earnings would be $5,500 higher than they are now.

Meanwhile, housing affordability has reached “worst-ever” levels in most of Canada’s major markets, according to a December analysis by RBC. On average, even condos are now so unaffordable that only 44.5 per cent of Canadian households had sufficient income to buy one at current prices. As for single-family homes, only the richest 25 per cent of Canadian households had any hope of obtaining one.

According to the Heritage Foundation, economic freedom in Canada declined sharply since Trudeau took office.  

The Canadian experience again shows how socialism harms the interests of the young.  Nine years into the Trudeau Administration, young people in Canada can only look forward to declining living standards and renting in perpetuity.  Not a happy situation.    

Lack of Hope Making Young Americans Into Doom Spenders

Two in five Gen Zs and Millennials are doom spending according to a survey of 1000 consumers by Credit Karma.  Doom spending is defined as spending money as way to cope with stress about the economy and war.  It's evidence of a lack of hope in the future.    

Jake Peirce, 25, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the reason he is doom spending is that “with inflation and the cost of living increasing, it makes me wonder where our world is heading. I know it won’t get better, and I would rather live it up and spend money as opposed to saving.”

There are a lot of factors leading young Americans to give up hope for the future.

Soaring housing costs and lack of availability are causing a lot of young people to give up on ever being able to own a home.  House prices have doubled since 2010 far outstripping the growth in wages.  

High home prices make it more difficult for young people to live on their own.  For the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s a majority of young Americans now live with their parents.   

Inflation and falling real wages are another concern especially among Gen Zs.  Employment services find that young Americans are more concerned about salary and wages when looking for a job than any other generation.  

War is also am concern.  Over the last two years the United States has been the primary weapons supplier and financial supporter of Ukraine in its war with Russia, a country with over 6,000 nuclear weapons.  According to the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the world is closer to a nuclear war today than at any time in history.

Young people are also concerned about the prospects of war.  Half of Americans between 18 and 29 think that it's very or somewhat likely that there will be another world war within the next 5 to 10 years and more than half think that a future world war would involve nuclear weapons.  

There are also other signs that young Americans are losing hope in the future.  Young Americans are increasing depressed, unhappy and lonely.  

All of these signs point to a difficult future for young people and for America.  Our lives are path dependent.  The early years of adulthood are the time in which we form our vision of ourselves and for the world around us.  That vision stays with us the rest of our lives.

The effects of rising unhappiness and hopelessness among the young will permanent change the character of America.  Gen Zs and Millennials will be less entrepreneurial and optimistic, as well as crankier and less trusting of others, when they reach middle age when it is they, not the Baby Boomer and Gen Xers, that are in charge of the institutions of American political and economic life.   

   

Bidenomics: Financial Difficulties Causing Fewer Gen Zers to Get Engaged

 

Marriage is a key life milestone and engagements are a step towards married life.  However, the economic state of young Americans is so poor that fewer Gen Zers are choosing to get engaged.  

Signet Jewelers, the parent company of Kay Jewelers and Zales reports that the upswing in engagements that they predicted post-COVID is not working out as planned.  

Signet Jewelers Ltd., the parent company of Kay Jewelers and Zales, had previously signaled to investors that there would be an upswing in US engagements this year as dating patterns returned to normal. But that forecast was downgraded on Wednesday as the jeweler warned that persistently high inflation and job market uncertainty have forced some young folks to delay engagements. 

"If right now they're worried about their jobs or they're still paying a little bit more for rent or for gas, then they might wait a few months for that engagement," Gina Drosos, the CEO of SignetSignet, explained in a Wednesday interview quoted by Bloomberg.

Drosos said 2.1 million couples were engaged last year, the lowest in years, but recovered from the dating dry spell during Covid. Still, the number is well below the 2.8 million level seen pre-2020. 

The downshift in the outlook comes after three years of elevated inflation, which has strained consumers' finances. 

 

Switzerland Votes to Fleece Its Kids

 

The Swiss might have a reputation for thrift and self-discipline.  However, the results of Switzerland’s March 3 pension referenda show that even the Swiss have no taste for entitlement reform.  If pension reform is a political non-starter in Switzerland, why should young Americans have any hope that Washington will save Social Security? 

On Sunday 58% of Swiss voters decided to give themselves a pension raise and stick their kids with the bill. 

The raise took the form of a thirteen monthly pension check.  Starting in 2026, every Swiss pensioner will get a double payment in the month of November.  Payments in the other months will remain the same.  This amounts to an 8% pay raise for every pensioner, every year, forever. 

A sweet deal if you can get it.

Younger Swiss voters opposed the pay boost.  The vote reflects a generational divide.  Fifty-five percent of voters under 40 opposed the pension hike.  Older Swiss voters showed that they had no qualms about fleecing younger generations. 

Swiss voters also rejected by a margin of 75% to just 25% a proposal to raise the pension age from 65 to 66 by 2033.   

The proposal to raise the pension age was put forward by the Young Radical-Liberals.  The group gathered 145,000 signatures to put the referendum on the ballot. 

The Radical-Liberal Party, better known as the Free Democratic Party or the Liberals, is Switzerland’s classical liberal party.  The Free Democrats are the fourth largest party in the Swiss National Council.  The Young Radical-Liberals are the youth wing of the Free Democrats.

The proposal for the pension raise was put forth by labor unions and Swiss left-wing parties.  Unions and left-wing parties also opposed the increase in the pension age. 

Young people in Switzerland and elsewhere should take note:  unions and the left are not on your side. 

Switzerland badly needs pension reform.  The country is running out of young people.  Swiss government pensions are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Low birth rates mean that the number of Swiss workers per pensioner is going to collapse in the near future. 

Below is the population pyramid of Switzerland.  The Switzerland is about to experience as wave of retirements as the Swiss equivalent of the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are reaching retirement age in the next decade and a half.    

The results of the Swiss referenda show how unlikely it is that voters or politicians will enact reforms that put entitlements on a sustainable path. 

America also has a generational divide on entitlements.  As in Switzerland, young Americans are more likely to support changes to Social Security like cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.  A majority of older voters and organized interest groups like the AARP oppose changes that will improve the financial viability of the Social Security System. 

If even the Swiss have no taste for even modest changes to their pension system, there’s little reason to expect that Washington politicians or the American electorate will back changes to Social Security or other entitlements absent an imminent financial collapse. 

Five Signs the Recession is Already Here

 

The American economy has been transformed over the last three years through centralized economic planning and big government spending.  Americans have less freedom to make economic choices today than any time in the past 25 years. 

The result.  Not prosperity.  Most Americans believe that the inflationary economic policies of the Biden Administration have been harmful to them.  Inflation has eaten away at their paychecks.  Now there’s increasing evidence that the U.S. economy is sliding into or already in a recession. 

Here are five signs that the American economy is already in a recession:

Falling Economic Indicators: The Conference Board’s leading economic indicators are deep in recession territory.  Consumers are struggling to pay bills.  Consumer confidence is down.  Even demand for cardboard boxes, which are used to ship most everything, is down. 

Rising Business Bankruptcies: S&P reports that the number of business bankruptcies in 2023 was 72 percent higher than 2022 and the highest in the last thirteen years.  2023 has been described as a mass extinction year for startup companies.  Pitchbook estimates that over 3,000 venture-backed startups failed in 2023.  2023 was a dismal year for companies going public.  Only 154 companies went public in 2023, half the annual rate of initial public offerings during the four years of the Trump Administration. 

Falling tax collections:  federal tax collections in 3Q 2023 are down 11 percent from 3Q 2022.  Tax collections are a good sign of the amount of private sector economic activity because the federal government takes a share of all private sector earnings and profits. 

Manufacturing Contracting: The Institute for Supply Management reports that the manufacturing sector has been contracting for the last 14 months.  S&P’s Chief Business Economist Chris Williamson says about manufacturing that “an increasing sense of gloom about the near-term outlook has meanwhile hit hiring and led to a further major pull-back in purchasing activity.”  So much for blue collar Joe.

Declines in Temporary Employment: Temporary employees are easier to lay off than permanent employees.  As a result, temporary employment falls more rapidly than permanent employment as the economy enters a recession.  According to the BLS, employment in temporary services has fallen for 15 straight months.