hankyoreh

Shin Jin-wook

Though this year’s presidential election was called the most distasteful and negative South Korean election to date, voters turned out to polls with fervor instead of reacting with cold indifference. The many provocations by Yoon Suk-yeol and his camp and the ensuing backlash gave way to a standoff between the two sides, bringing to political light the deep fissures within South Korean society that precipitated the fiery battle at the ballot box.

Colossal structures of conflict within key fields such as generational issues, gender, peace, and labor were laid bare with every word and slogan carelessly uttered by Yoon and his camp, such as those related to anti-feminism, the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the eradication of communism, a preemptive strike against North Korea, a 120-hour work week, and adjusting the minimum wage. The politicization of societal fissures must be given close attention, as they will significantly impact the future of our society.

The most volatile of the issues debated in the discursive battlefield of the recent presidential election is none other than generational fissures. By putting forward a strategy of “generational encirclement,” People Power Party chief Lee Jun-seok attempted to push voters at either end of the age spectrum toward the right in order to prevail over voters in their 40s and 50s.

This strategy ultimately failed. The escalating backlash against conservatives’ politics of hate resulted in more votes for the Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung among voters in their 20s than for Yoon. Voters in their 30s voted for the conservative candidate as a result of the Moon Jae-in administration’s failures that led to skyrocketing housing prices, not because Lee Jun-seok’s strategy worked as intended.

What’s more important in terms of generational fissures is that they are fluctuating violently. Though the ballot count pointed to a Lee Jae-myung victory among voters in their 40s and 50s, the Moon Jae-in administration’s support base was made up mainly of voters in their 30s and 40s up until the halfway point of Moon’s term, after which voters in their 30s ultimately turned their backs on Moon.

Right now, voters in their 20s and 30s are extremely fluid in terms of their political orientation. Division is great within this voting bloc, and only a small number of them staunchly support a specific party. Young voters are not part of a homogeneous political generation. The crux of the current political situation lies in intensifying generational politics, through which various camps are fighting to gain the support of young voters. Conflict and competition within the younger generation are about ready to burst.

Division along gender lines is the newest and most poignant development in the fissure within the younger generation. Differences in political orientation among young voters according to gender have been intensifying in recent years.

From the 2016 general election to the 2017 presidential election, the 2020 general election, and the 2021 special election, young male voters and young female voters continued to veer away from each other, the former moving toward the right while the latter moved to the left. The younger the age group, the more marked the divergence in political orientation according to gender. In this year’s presidential election, 58% of male voters in their 20s supported Yoon Suk-yeol while the same percentage of female voters in their 20s supported Lee Jae-myung, each voting bloc a mirror image of the other. Coming up with an explanation for this phenomenon is an important challenge that lies ahead.

Like generational fissures, the fissure along gender lines has proved dynamic. That’s because biological sex doesn’t predict how men and women may diverge on issues of value systems such as feminism.

The incredible achievement accomplished by the anti-hate resistance of women in their 20s and 30s and “ordinary men acting against hate” clearly shows that young voters are not predominated by radical hate. This presidential election demonstrated the formidable explosive power anti-feminism holds among young men, but it also showed that a broad consensus on values regarding gender equality and anti-hate that transcends gender division is possible.

Lastly, fissures along class lines were another type of serious societal fissure that engendered the most extensive conflict underlying our society all throughout the Moon administration and manifested in various ways in the outcome of the presidential election. The Moon administration and the Democratic Party incorporated all kinds of virtuous values such as equality, fairness, justice, welfare, and labor appreciation in their discourse and agenda. When the Moon administration and the Democratic Party pursued these values, the privileged class retaliated, calling for the defeat of “communism.” When the Moon administration and the Democratic Party betrayed these values, the people looked away, disgusted by the “hypocrisy” of the administration and the ruling party. Real estate deepened such dual fissures more acutely than any other issue.

Even if skyrocketing housing prices yield a profit of 1 billion won, the rich will not accept a comprehensive real estate tax of 1 million won. The young middle class are stuck in a dead end, unable to become homeowners due to loan regulations, also unable to stand the instability of renting. The lower class are at a loss for words watching a reality in which home prices easily exceed hundreds of millions of won. Like this, different socioeconomic classes have turned their backs on the Democratic Party for disparate reasons. But real estate isn’t the only problem. The bottom rung of Korean society is boiling with class rage and animosity due to issues of irregular employment, the job market, and income. What’s clear is that the solution to these problems isn’t Yoon Suk-yeol.

Under the Yoon administration, such deep societal fissures may unfold in an entirely different direction than they did during the Moon administration under a markedly different political environment. If a pro-corporation, anti-labor, and anti-feminist force dominated by prosecutors emerges with militance in South Korea, repressed societal resistance will explode and erupt with equal force. This year’s presidential election offered a preview of where those sparks of conflict may ignite.

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