➡️ Why are young people—in the US and around the world—shifting right?

I wrote about a phenomenon I call Generation C—the young people whose experience with COVID's health, political, and economic crises caused a strong shift right among young ppl across the developed world.

In the U.S., between 2020 and 2024, voters under 30 (and esp young men) shifted ~20 points toward the GOP. In Germany, France, Portugal, Finland, and beyond, young voters seem to be swinging their support toward anti-establishment far-right parties in numbers exceeding older voters.

What's going on? Probably many things. The world is an incumbent's graveyard right now (cf John Burn-Murdoch). Inflation is a scourge. Immigration is creating headaches for centrist/progressive parties throughout Europe.

But I also think that, in ways both obvious and non-obvious, this is a COVID phenomenon. The pandemic era didn't just demolish faith in scientific and political elites. It also strongly increased alone time, sending young men and women in highly gendered social-media spaces, where the youngest men in particular seem to have become significantly more anti-feminist and open to right-wing influencers and parties.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/?gift=o6MjJQpusU9ebnFuymVdsHrkCe1QULWZ3ae-yZ_tiEo

🔗 Derek Thompson

🇪🇺 EU pushes ‘Buy European’ quotas in major plan to revive industry

The European Commission is planning to introduce “Made in the EU” quotas and carbon product labels as it tries to revive ailing manufacturers while hitting climate targets.

The proposals are laid out in a draft of the Commission's Clean Industrial Deal, obtained by POLITICO ahead of its Feb. 26 unveiling. The document offers the EU executive’s grand strategy for weaving together the bloc’s efforts to decarbonize and revitalize its heavy industry, setting out the steps it plans to take in the coming years.

The plan lands at a precarious political moment. European manufacturers in sectors such as steel and cement say excessive bureaucracy and high energy costs are leaving them unable to compete with the U.S. and China. Exacerbating the problem, both Washington and Beijing are spending lavishly on their companies, with new President Donald Trump in particular employing a “Buy American” rhetoric.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-europe-major-plan-industry-clean-industrial-deal-climate-targets-donald-trump/

📈 Gold closes at an all time high above $2,930 as another 160,000 oz of physical gold are delivered to Comex vaults, bringing total to 37.6 million troy oz, with "big 3" vaults at all time high

https://fxtwitter.com/zerohedge/status/1891972365510177266

🇺🇸🇲🇽 The U.S. has officially declared the following as Foreign Terrorist Organizations:

Tren de Aragua, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, and the Michoacán Family.

⛓️‍💥 Rapid Response 47