The youth vote is turning right

Young people are supposed to drink a ton, have a lot of sex, hang out with their friends at every opportunity and vote for the left. Today’s young don’t live up to the stereotype. According to polls, they are one of the most responsible generations on record. Across the West, the share of young adults who binge-drink or who are sexually active has fallen to a new low. Teenagers spend far less time hanging out with their friends than their parents or grandparents did. They even seem to be defying political expectations – though their recent drift to the right has, in its own way, succeeded just as well in horrifying their elders.

Last month, for example, a group of fashionably clad vacationers at an upscale bar on the German island of Sylt shocked the country by singing along to an old tune by DJ Gigi D’Agostino with new lyrics: ‘Ausländer Raus’ (‘Throw out the Foreigners’).