Amidst multiple crises, reports indicate that young people are anxious about the future. Yet how future anxiety relates to adolescents' political attitudes remains largely unknown, presenting a critical research gap in times of democratic dissatisfaction. Across three studies, we present important insights into the relationships between young people's feelings about the future and their political attitudes. In a first cross-sectional study of UK adolescents (N₁ = 988), we explored associations between future anxiety and political ideology, support for authoritarian or democratic principles, open-minded thinking, and political participation. Against common narratives, our results indicated that young people most anxious about the future were also most supportive of democratic principles and most willing to participate in politics. However, follow-up analyses revealed notable interactions with gender and emotion regulation abilities. We present extended replications of these findings in a second cross-sectional sample of younger UK adolescents (N₂ ≈ 1000; ages 12-17). Finally, we will present first insights from a pre-registered survey experiment (N₃ ≈ 1000; ages 16-21) using emotionally evocative social media posts to investigate how different feelings about the future—anxiety, optimism, or an emotionally neutral control—affect young people's pro-democratic attitudes and political participation. Together, these studies provide an important empirical foundation on the psychological determinants of pro-democratic attitudes and political development in times of multiple crises. The focus on young people, who are growing up amidst these crises and who will have to live the longest with their consequences is important. Firstly, because young people are often the ones most affected by these crises, for example regarding their mental health. Second and perhaps more importantly, today's younger generations are the ones who have the potential to defend democratic values in the future.