OPINION A question that does not suit PSD, PNL and USR: only TikTok made AUR big? What the politicians don’t want to see

A young Romanian is four times more exposed than the “average young person” in the EU to the inability to buy things he needs. Young people were the first vulnerable to pandemic, crisis and war. During this time, the traditional parties are concerned with momentary political calculations rather than providing a perspective to society.

The data of the survey of young people who prefer AUR, recently published exclusively by HotNews.ro and which confirm a trend noted by sociological studies since the past years, were not for politicians a wake-up call and connection to the reality of a Romania whose vote they are preparing to ask for it, four times this year.

From the seats of power, Rareș Bogdan (PNL) and Lucian Romașcanu (PSD) concluded that the TikTok platform is responsible for the “GOLD phenomenon” and “influencing the voter’s mind”. In conclusion, they proposed the rapid regulation of the application.

But has TikTok really made GOLD big? It was certainly a vehicle for propagating the messages of George Simion’s party in an environment preferred, rather, by young people.

But why did the AUR messages matter more in the offer with which this huge online mall challenges the user?

The COVID pandemic, the economic crisis and the war – overlapping major crises

The aforementioned politicians stopped short of invoking propaganda and aggressive manipulation. To some extent they are right, but this is how they closed the door to a reality they pretend not to see.

However, this year’s elections are also taking place in this reality, which are totally different from the other elections so far.

Not only four years have passed since the last elections, but the world has gone through moments that not only young people have not experienced, but not even the electorate that has long passed the period of youth.

The past four years have been marked by a series of overlapping major crises. The pandemic, the economic crisis and the war have left a significant mark on society.

GOLD began to rise at an astonishing speed during the pandemic, going from less than 1% in September 2020, locally, to 9% three months later, in December 2020. And it continued to rise, ending up being quoted around 20% in subsequent years’ surveys.

The opportunism to collect social anger

AUR didn’t come up with some miracle recipe. It was, from the beginning, an opportunistic party that managed to capitalize on all the anger of the electorate that felt abandoned by the traditional parties, more concerned with political calculations of the moment than with offering a perspective to society.

It was the pandemic with hard decisions, unexplained, sometimes almost incomprehensible, and taken, in part, by virtue of political interests (see the triumphalist announcements in the summer of 2020, in the run-up to the election campaign, that the virus had been defeated, so that in a few months disaster comes).

The economic crisis came, a natural consequence of the pandemic moment, which paralyzed the business environment. Then came the war which amplified it.

A young Romanian is four times more exposed than the EU average to the inability to buy things he needs

These inevitably attracted a societal crisis that was strongly felt by the most vulnerable categories. One of them is even represented by young people. And the statistics confirm it. In 2022, Romania had the highest rate of severe material and social deprivation in the EU among those aged between 15 and 29: 25.4%, while the average at the level of the EU bloc was 6%, according to the data Eurostat.

And deprivation makes the difference between not having food or decent housing and not having a PlayStation. Our young people are in trouble because they lack or cannot afford important, essential elements of life.

In such an atmosphere of social anxiety and in the absence of an adequate response from the decisive parties, George Simion’s party did nothing but rewrite its message on the coordinates that were until now the prerogative of PNL, USR, PSD. From respecting the law, fundamental rights and freedoms to the protection of vulnerable categories, AUR has become, at the level of social perception, from a marginal formation to a party invested with considerable trust capital.

Political villainy

But is AUR a different party than it was four years ago? Of course not. But the audience grew by attracting new categories of people. As a journalist, I have almost never been absent from the big AUR rallies in recent years. At first, yes, they had almost the air of a football gallery. Then, however, the human landscape became much more complex, with people from all walks of life. It remains to be seen, however, how the most informed and with European values ​​will react as AUR commits excesses.

George Simion’s party discusses some correct, legitimate issues related to poverty, education, health, which it pushes from the internal to the external, in a toxic debate, specific to authoritarian rather than democratic societies. Constructing an enemy outside its sphere of manifestation is the classic way to justify political impotence.

Claiming, for example, that you want a stronger Romania in the EU is one thing, but saying that the European Union is the new Soviet Union enters the register of political villainy.

Unfortunately, PNL and PSD, in power alternately or together for the last 30 years, patronize a Romania that they are trying to beautify, buying all the advertising space.

The cynical calculation of the merger further annoyed the society

Paying tribute to a damaging way of doing politics that it perpetuates from one election cycle to another, only fuels anger and indirectly legitimizes AUR. Instead, AUR took to the streets in its own way, managed to attract that energy that USR could not keep due to arrogant self-sufficiency.

It is no coincidence that the parties are now at their lowest level of confidence in the last 30 years. The recent moves on the political scene do not come to calm the tide, on the contrary.

The decision of the PNL and PSD to merge the European parliamentary elections with the local ones was not taken by virtue of any deep democratic feeling, but as a result of a cynical calculation to preserve power and demote the AUR.

They reckoned like this: the diaspora votes that George Simion’s party relied on to get a good score in the European Parliament elections, which traditionally do not show much interest, may now be lost in those of the huge party machine that the PNL and PSD have in the country.

When young people mobilize to vote

Under these conditions, the scope that AUR has gained on the political scene is not a surprise, as is the fact that George Simion’s party is preferred by young people. How much this will matter in the vote is hard to say. Anticipations are risky.

Young people’s interest in elections, in the last ten years, was greater in moments of polarization at the level of society:

• In 2014, in the presidential elections, when more than 50% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 went out to vote.
• In 2019, when the European parliamentary elections were coupled with the justice referendum, when the percentage was 41% and in the presidential elections, 39%, according to official data.

Otherwise, the participation rates were reduced – parliamentary 2016 (around 30%), local and parliamentary 2020 (23%). In the above-average cases, the mobilization came against the backdrop of the confrontation between the traditional camp and the anti-establishment political camp.

There is no guarantee that GOLD’s momentum will continue, just as there is no guarantee that things cannot change quickly. Illusory solutions can have dramatic effects, if only for the reason that you have not known until now that the evil can be greater. And that’s not TikTok’s fault.