TikTok generation back parties against the system

In their search for answers young voters are increasingly turning to social media, with 63 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds saying they use it to find out about political issues. This is where the alt-right is thriving.

Young people are increasingly turning to TikTok for political information.

Cigarette in one hand and coffee flask in the other, Max Probius stands outside the library at the University of Tubingen taking a study break. The forestry student knows he cares about climate change and the state of the economy, but when it comes to deciding who to vote for in the election next Sunday, he is less certain.

“I’m currently torn between the Greens and the Left [party],” Probius, 23, said. “I would like to vote for the Left, but only if I am sure they will get over the 5 per cent hurdle so that my vote is guaranteed to count and the distribution of votes doesn’t go in favour of the AfD.”

While four years ago people under 30 overwhelmingly voted for the Green Party and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), young people’s political views appear far more fragmented and confused this time around - and increasingly driven by social media.

An estimated 45 per cent of voters aged between 18 to 29 would use the term “uncertainty” to best describe their emotional state, according to a survey by the polling institute Civey, with 37 per cent using the word “anger” and 31 per cent using “powerlessness”. Only 20 per cent identified with the term “confidence”.

Janina Mutze, co-founder of Civey, believes that young people’s increasingly “blurry vision of the future” is the result of an accumulation of global and domestic crises, including fears about economic prosperity and war in Europe.

“Young people are not necessarily more pessimistic nor optimistic than other generations but they are more insecure. They have felt the multiple crises of the last years more deeply because they came at a much more sensitive phase of their lives,” she said.

Instead of climate change and social justice issues, young people are now increasingly concerned about domestic security, migration, pensions and economic performance, Mutze added.

In their search for answers young voters are increasingly turning to social media, with 63 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds saying they use it to find out about political issues surrounding the upcoming election, Civey says.

Here fringe parties, like the AfD and the Left, reign supreme. A study from the University of Potsdam last year found more than two thirds of political videos appearing on young people’s social media were related to the AfD, which is led by Alice Weidel.

Elon Musk speaks live via a video transmission during the election campaign launch rally of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Over the past decade the hard-right party, which has 6.72 million followers across platforms on its official accounts, has developed an ecosystem of dedicated “fan” and “edit” accounts that widely disperse pro-AfD content.

Its positioning as anti-establishment has made the AfD especially attractive to young voters, according to Rudiger Maas, founder of the Institute for Generation Research.

The latest polls suggest that 17 per cent of Germans aged between 18 to 29 will vote for the AfD this week, making it the third strongest party behind the Greens and the Left, both at 19 per cent.

Maas said: “Twenty-seven per cent of young people reject the idea of political right and left. It’s not up to date, they can’t do much with that characterisation. Instead their logic is about for or against the system. The AfD is an ‘against-the-system party’, which young people see as more progressive and modern, where young people feel heard. They believe the AfD is bringing new ideas, new concepts and it’s not a repetition of what’s already there.”

While JD Vance, the US vice-president, claimed free speech was in “retreat” across Europe at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, the difficulty for young voters in Germany is not so much a fear of expressing their opinions but of not having them heard.

The perception that mainstream parties are not listening is what is pushing them towards fringe parties, according to Maas. He said the broken promises of the ruling “traffic light” coalition - of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Greens and FDP - have exacerbated the issue.

“They’re not completely pro-AfD but at the moment it is the only party which provides an alternative to the mainstream in their opinion,” he said. “What they greatly underestimate are the consequences of the AfD’s participation in government.

“They think they’ll vote for the AfD this year and then once everything has sorted itself out, they can vote for someone else. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way, as we’re currently seeing in other European countries.”

Martin Fuchs, a political consultant, said the impact of social media was keenly felt in this election. Some of the smaller parties had spent almost half of their budget on social media campaigns, he said.

One example is the unexpected resurgence of the Left party, which burst back on the scene when a video went viral of its leader, Heidi Reichinnek, attacking Friedrich Merz, the probable next chancellor and leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), for trying to pass a strict immigration bill.

Fuchs said: “Heidi Reichinnek is the perfect TikTok politician. She knows how to use it, she knows how to entertain and still communicate political content objectively and that’s why the most successful TikTok party is currently the Left in terms of growth of likes, interactions and followers. They have such a digital momentum right now where [the SPD chancellor] Olaf Scholz and Merz are just worlds away.”

The co-leader of Germany's far-right AfD party Alice Weidel.

The Left party has enjoyed a rise in the polls since then but Fuchs warned that social media’s power was not all conquering, pointing out that young people increasingly hold political discussions in closed forums. “You won’t win an election with social media,” he said. “but with bad or no social media you will lose every election.”

Sitting in a cafe near Tubingen’s medieval town centre, Meltem Seker, 24, a political science student, explained that the lack of clear solutions on topics such as migration and the economy was making the decision on who to vote for difficult this year.

“What concerns me most is the economy,” she said. ” I’m scared of what will happen here if poverty increases, unemployment increases and right-wing populist parties get more and more votes because of it. I’m also scared that this could damage our democracy if the current social decline continues and anti-democratic parties grow stronger.”

Seker, who also has a TikTok channel where she posts political content, added: “The second most important thing to me is migration policy. I wouldn’t even say whether I’m for or against migration but rather that I’m for orderly and limited migration. I think it would be best for all sides if we stopped trying to save the whole world and instead took in fewer people and supported their integration more. It’s a matter of security.”

Four years ago she voted for the SPD but now describes herself as “centre right” and is hoping for a CDU-led government. But like many of her TikTok followers, some of whom have outright asked her who to vote for, Seker is still undecided.

“It is the responsibility of democratic parties to ensure that the AfD is not the only option if you want stricter migration policy,” she said. “If you leave it up to the AfD you can’t be too mad when people vote for them. I won’t do it, I know better, but not everyone studies politics.”

THE TIMES