Oh come on. We all know that's not true. The citizens didn't turn neoliberal or particularly apathetic; the politicians did under the advice of economists who pushed neoliberalism as the solution to the oil crisis.
>If you want a new left wing, make it happen. Join a local board. Run for local office. Take part in your community. Be a part of something. But don't expect reading news or commenting on forums to change anything.
This I can agree with! Not just that, but provide names of organizations pushing a more "Old Left", social-democratic agenda. I belong to the first two of these as a dues-paying member and a volunteer, and we've been gaining hundreds of new members since the election. It's honestly like waking up from a bad dream: all of a sudden, the bread-and-butter issues (wages, housing, health-care, civil liberties) matter again, and the culture wars are getting sidelined.
* Democratic Socialists of America
* Our Revolution (started by Bernie Sanders)
* Socialist Alternative (more "party-line", worse at returning people's calls)
* The Berniecrats Network
* /r/Berniecrats and facebook/Berniecrats
* Jacobin magazine and its associated reading groups
For those looking for a more decent right-wing as well, I recommend Reason magazine, the Washington Monthly (especially this one, it's a hidden gem of a magazine), the Libertarian Party, the works of Henry George, and GK Chesterton's "distributivism".
I also definitely have a bone to pick with the people claiming we're gonna totally obtain third-party electoral successes Real Soon Now. Yes, the Democratic Party has been rubbish to us. It has been the "graveyard of social movements". But we've also run a hell of a lot of social movements (like Occupy Wall Street, for instance) that had a whole ton of radical spirit, chic, and ideology, but had zero power analysis and zero affirmative program. Our Revolution and Bernie's rejuvenation of social democracy through taking over the Democratic Party, while it's lost its back-bench, from the bottom up, does actually promise a strategy for obtaining real power that's suited to our historical moment.
Just my thoughts. Don't mind me. I'm no longer sober.
If you want a new left wing, make it happen. Join a local board. Run for local office. Take part in your community. Be a part of something. But don't expect reading news or commenting on forums to change anything. After all, the shift from active citizen to passive consumer is what got us in this mess in the first place.
Adam Curtis has several phenominal documentaries regarding this shift over time. Particularly, "Century of the Self", "The Trap", and most recently, "HyperNormalization."