issue: These mock elections are important because the kids by and large reflect the true opinions of their parents.
Sure, there WILL be some rebellion as kids deliberately think and act differently than their parents. But what we are seeing is to a large extent a reflection of parental base values.
But it also illuminates an interesting phenomenon–Let me give you an example from my own life:
I am a born rebel. I often say that I was born to be a burr under someone’s saddle. My late father (who was an intellectual prodigy farm boy who went on to get a doctorate from Berkeley and a career as a college professor) was a HUGE rebel who was deeply offended by anything he saw as “unfair.” He was a much more “raw,” open fighter than I am.
But in my long academic and clinical career, I (much like my father) always looked from the outside like a very conforming person. For example, as a Naval officer stationed with Marines, I cut my hair in a flat top “high and tight.” Other docs (with hair just slightly too long for regulations) would mock me and say that I was just trying to curry favor with the Marines. I would just act sheepish and say nothing.
But that accusation was not true. In my mind I would say, “You don’t get it–I am openly mocking YOU!”
In my graduate training, one professor (on her own) “got” what I was doing. And she supported me in it–and we laughed together about it. But most professors could or would not see beyond the veneer.
I loved doing a post-doc at Harvard because I could rebel by… looking and acting conventional. The Harvard folks didn’t get the joke, either–I was making fun of THEM!
So I’m glad that the German kids have something to rebel against. And that rebellion drives them straight into the AfD. Yes, rebel toward good sense.
Rebellion can be a good thing. For all its self-serving and showy talk, the Left simply can’t tolerate rebellion against them. And this shows that they have gone from being avant-garde to being just garden-variety garde. They have gone FAR astray from the ethos of Punk Rock and are now merely cringing curs hoping to get a scrap thrown to them from the master’s table.