Indeed, I’m not arguing that any organised movement strengthens democracy. As Wendy Brown and others have shown, neoliberalism didn’t just erode collective structures in the abstract, it specifically dismantled progressive counterpower: labour, civil rights, and solidarity-based publics.
The vacuum left behind hasn’t remained empty, it’s been filled by reactionary, exclusionary forces precisely because the democratic infrastructure that once channelled collective action toward justice was smashed.
So yes, what was hollowed out wasn’t organisation per se, it was the civic and institutional capacity to expand democracy. Rebuilding that means recovering not just form, but direction: structures that cultivate public reasoning, solidarity, and shared democratic purpose.
I agree but I have no idea how except the hard slog of irl organizing around material, everyday issues But you can't really do that without social media and all that entails Where I live a few MLM and knitting(!) influencers built a 100k strong movement like that. But it is antivax and rw populist
They say 'politics follows culture' and have set up local meetups, food growing groups and a radio station They're also using their network to introduce rw ideology via a mixture of lifestyle and political content But they have $$$ and can draw on copious output of US/UK culture war influencers
It would be great if the left could do that. Our indigenous people do have the kind of independent grassroots, social movement you describe, but they have had to, to persist. But the left seems to be mainly on line with the occasional one off, reactive protest which doesn't really go anywhere.
On the party political level, how can there be any hope when the supposed opponents of fascism adopt its language and so much of its world view? When they plainly believe in nothing? What hope is there for civic society once Labour's calamitous failures give us a Reform government?