The kids are, it is becoming clear, all right. Well perhaps not all right, but certainly increasingly right — in their political views, that is. (Whether they are OK is, unfortunately, much less clear.)
In poll after poll on both sides of the Atlantic, young people are aligning themselves with — and casting their votes for — parties, movements and ideas on the right. And not just moderately or traditionally rightwing ones either, but populist, anti-immigrant and reactionary forces. These movements question liberal-democratic norms, disdain institutions like independent media and universities and despise the political establishment.
Curtis Yarvin, the blogger and computer engineer whose ideas helped shape Trump 2.0, is sometimes dubbed the “godfather” of the more iconoclastic faction of these online and mainly young rightwingers. He has recently taken to calling the “new right” — as the more radical, edgy, uncompromising faction is often labelled — the “young right” because of how important its younger members have become.