A chill wind swept through Europe this summer. On the continent, far-right parties rose triumphantly in the EU elections, hoisted not just by the grumbles of older xenophobes but on the shoulders of young men. When news crews went out on the streets to train their cameras on these extremists in France, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, they found no blackshirts, just barbershop trims and Zara chinos worn by young men, enthralled by dreams of ethnonationalism and a return to the values of the 1980s or the 1940s or some other period long before their birth. Then, in Britain this weekend, gangs of mostly young far-right men marauded through northern towns, attacking mosques and accommodation for asylum seekers. The nationalist right is rising once more on the tides of gelled-backed hair and Nike swooshes.
Young men used to vote more like young people: left. Now they might start voting like men: right. What changed?
So if Democrats were clearly the party of young women, Republicans tried to take advantage of being the de facto party of young men.
Tucker Carlson, the most powerful commentator on the right at the time, monologued nightly on Fox News about their plight.
It was the night after the Highland Park Independence Day parade shooting, and Carlson was explaining why a 21-year-old man like Robert Crimo might want to murder seven people at random.
The message was amplified by Trump-supporting figures outside the party too, chief among them Andrew Tate, the misogynist podcaster with a huge following among teenage boys.
Within days of being re-elected to the European parliament this year, he was expelled from his party after making sympathetic comments about the SS.
