Das Zukunftsproblem der Linken: Junge Menschen wenden sich von ihren Parteien und Werten ab

“If at 20 you’re not on the left, you have no heart; if at 40 you still are, you have no head.” Although it is often attributed to Winston Churchill, it is actually an anonymous aphorism that—somewhat worn out by now—circulates easily because it fits a seemingly common-sense intuition: the values associated with youth—utopianism, rebellion—seem to align better with the left, and vice versa. But in the case of young men in Spain today, that intuition clashes with the numbers. And that is a serious problem for the left, one that has surfaced in the midst of debate about its future.

The ball was set rolling by Emilio Delgado, a regional MP for Más Madrid, who took advantage of the attention surrounding his talk on Wednesday alongside Gabriel Rufián to reiterate a warning. The left, he said in [Eldiario.es](http://Eldiario.es), still has “work to do” to reach “young men.” Later, he elaborated on Cadena SER: in addition to defending women and LGBTQ+ people, the left must win over “boys between 18 and 24.” He repeated the idea at Wednesday’s event. Many “young guys,” he said, have “difficulty” seeing the left as “their home.”

Delgado has stumbled somewhat in presenting his thesis. After facing criticism for including in his argument that heterosexuals should not be “made invisible,” he has been careful to stress that he is not calling for any retreat from defending feminism and LGBTQ+ people, but rather for simultaneously conveying to young men that these causes are not an attack on their “masculinity.” The apologies he had to offer after his initial remarks, along with the flood of reactions to his appeal, show how divisive the debate can be. For some, he dared to address a taboo subject. For others, he bought into a right-wing framing.

What is undeniable is that the left has a problem—and not only the alternative left. A February poll by 40dB. shows that men aged 18 to 28 form the group least likely to support PSOE, Sumar, or Podemos. In all three parties, the largest gender gap among centennial voters appears in this age bracket, with young men consistently less willing to back them.

The contrast is provided by Vox. A striking 38% of men aged 18 to 28 plan to vote for Santiago Abascal. The three state-wide right-wing forces with a chance of entering Congress—PP, Vox, and Se Acabó la Fiesta—together total 49.6% voting intention in this group, compared with just 14.1% for their three counterparts on the left.

**Climate, taxes, feminism**

In the voting intentions recorded in the last five surveys by CIS and 40dB., eight out of ten times the results for PSOE, Sumar, and Podemos are better among young women than among young men. So the phenomenon is not a statistical mirage; it is a stable position. And it did not fall from the sky—it is the result of an ideological shift to the right. Among all age and gender groups, men aged 18 to 24 are the second most right-leaning (5.48 on a 1–10 scale), surpassed only by women over 75. In addition, they are the least concerned about climate change—a flagship issue for the left—and the group most likely to see immigration as the country’s main problem, a core theme for conservative forces, according to CIS data.

The ideological drift also affects attitudes toward taxation, a topic on which young men are heavily exposed on social media to influencers campaigning against the tax authorities. Men under 25 repeatedly appear among the groups most opposed to taxes, according to the latest CIS monographic survey from July 2025. The starkest data concern tolerance of tax fraud. In response to 14 CIS questions, in 11 cases the group most lenient toward cheating the tax authorities is the 18–24 age bracket. They are also the group most likely—nearly 45%—to say that the main reason for tax fraud is that taxes are “excessive,” compared with 19.5% of the population as a whole.

On equality and diversity, signs of a break from the trend of progressive consensus among the youngest men have been visible for more than two years. In a July 2024 survey by 40dB., boys under 27 were the group most likely (43.6%) to support the idea that “there should be a heterosexual pride day.” This is not a figure determined by age alone, but by age and gender combined. This is shown by the fact that the group least in agreement with that statement (16.5%) is their female peers. It is pure ideological polarization by gender. Another figure: nearly 27% of boys under 27 say they feel “uncomfortable” seeing a same-sex couple—more than double any other group. They are a minority, yes, but more than one in four.

The most discouraging picture for those who believed feminism was moving toward broad, cross-cutting hegemony was shown by the CIS in its first survey *Perceptions on Equality* in November 2023. Above all, because of men aged 16 to 24—the group most likely to think that men are the ones who are discriminated against (51.1%), and the least likely to believe that women have to make greater efforts to obtain the same job (40.9%). All of this converges in the fact that men under 25 are the group that, on a scale where 0 is “not at all feminist” and 10 is “very feminist,” place themselves closest to 0 (5.05).

I’m sure the main cause is propaganda from right wing sources. I see their talking points popping up all over the legacy and social media.

That’s so weird??? I don’t find that at all to be the case on Reddit? Must be propaganda!

Immigration. All they have to do is deal with that and everyone will vote for them again (myself included).

Welp people are fed up with ppl not sharing their values and refuse to integrate. Yet „the left“ insists on their ideology and steers straight into the abyss. Denmark shwed that both left poltitics but strict immigration rules work. In times of crisis sadly nobody gives a fuck about climate change so they’ll lose whats left of their voters

I wonder why. Maybe left movements who represented exclusively by far left is a bad thing. I’m sure many people who turned away from left parties and values did it because were personally attacked by far-left upon trying to have reasonable discussion with them.

After all modern far-left operate under motto „Either you agree with us about everything or you’re our mortal enemy“ . Even if person agrees with them on 90% , they will be labeled as worst person Earth ever known.

IMO

Lots of left main proposals about immigration, integration, work, family, social structure.

Were just a lot more fringe than they understood. The left top politicians and thinkers were very elitistic and actually didn’t have a clue about what their intended voters really wanted.

All in all, they are flabbergasted that the population is indeed much more conservative than what they thought.

Most of their voters agree on their economic proposals though. But they spend the last 20 years expanding in topics people don’t want them to get into IMHO.

The moment we generalise about the left right centre is when we stop understanding the problems.

Both aides have positive things to offer and negative ones as well.

Let’s talk about problems for what they are not the way we feel about them or if it is right or left.

This story is bullshit. Young women have never been more leftwing.

If only we could have more leaders like Denmarks Mette Frederiksen. She’s leading a left-wing bloc of political parties, but still has a very firm stand on immigration.

Right now alot of countries are stuck between woke idealists who refuse to see mass immigration as anything but a strength and right wing Russian puppets only interested in self gain.

Garbage from US is creeping in.

IMO, some gender politics and ideas have played a role, especially in driving away young men

The left needs to start selling a better future. It needs to propose us a future to dream for.

All the left can promise nowadays is for things to not get worse. Which is good, I don’t want things to get worse. But mostly I want them to get a whole lot better.

I just don’t think the ‚left‘ (as it has existed for roughly the past half-century) has any serious answers to the contemporary challenges facing Europe.

Europe (and I include Britain in this) is falling behind America and China. There’s a problem of structurally high unemployment (especially youth unemployment) across much of Southern Europe, as well as chronic deficit-spending and therefore rising debt. Productivity is high compared to Africa, of course, but substantially below the United States.

And in the medium-to-long term, there’s the problem of below-replacement level birth-rates combined with rapidly ageing societies, mass third-world immigration fundamentally transforming and damaging European societies, as well as the growing levels of both personal and national indebtedness and the spread of various social pathologies across liberal societies.

More spending on welfare, higher taxes on the most productive classes in society to pay for this, ever-growing regulatory burdens on businesses, startups and entrepreneurs are not going to fix any of these problems. They’re going to make them worse.

If you want to fix the birthrate, yes you’re going to have to use the state to provide the right sorts of incentives, but it’s also going to mean deliberately waging a cultural campaign to return to a more traditional and positive view of the role of the family, of what it’s like to be a father or mother, and its importance. That’s not ground any person on the left is going to feel comfortable on.

And if you want to fix the chronic deficit-spending and indebtedness, then more spending and higher taxes is just going to make it worse.

There’s a limit to how high you can raise a national minimum wage, or the extent of employment rights you can grant, before it really hurts your economic growth, and thus people’s standards of living.

I don’t know that the left has any real answers to this set of problems, because these aren’t the problems that the modern left developed in response to in the first place. If anything, they’re partly caused by policies advocated for by the left.

Ah, gotta love the flood of ‚the left would win if they just focused on the REAL issues‘ (aka just be conservative on social issues) comments. They seem to forget that equality is the MAIN thing the left is supposed to be for…

What left are we even talking about?

The left that is basically the right with a different coat of paint?

Because modern left is incompetent. To win elections, simply be economically leftist, use left-wing populism and campaign around financial inequality and such and boom, you won. But to do so, you need to adopt an anti-establishment posture, and we are afraid to do that. Nowadays “conservatives” are more anti-establishment and populist.