That those who hold power use this same power to tell us that they have no power is one of the strangest things about the general Left. They're still playing victim when the 'oppressors' are older versions of themselves. Most of the leading Democrats—the 'community organizer' Obama, H. Clinton and Sanders most notably—were the 1960s-70s version of the Salem and Portland 'peaceful protesters'. Then they started wearing suits and ties, made some compromises with capitalism while pushing some Leftist reforms like welfare, Affirmative Action, etc. and otherwise focused chiefly on their social agendas. Hence, 'woke capitalism'.

I think the French Left is actually very powerful, but divided, which gives the Right an edge. Last election you could see PS under Hamon trying to swing back Left again, moving PS back towards Melenchon's space. Then you have the Greens who are making large gains on the lower-level elections. Then there's a whole heap of crazy parties like the once-powerful PCF and the 'New Anticapitalist Party' further dividing up the vote. Although there is some fracturing in the RN/Le Pen camp it seems like there are generally much less choices for the Right, hence more unity.

I also agree about the general thing about the economic Left being 'obsolete' to the masses. Marx wrote in a time when even he was noticing a drastic increase in abundance, but he could not have possibly foreseen the sheer superabundance of the contemporary West. Marxism has no appeal when normies are simply prioritizing self-actualization through satisfying material needs/wants. Ergo, 'pure Marxists' acting like it's still 1848, when there is still child labour and every man spends all day doing menial work in a factory owned by some bourgeois, just seem totally out of place in the post-industrial economy where plenty of people are self-employed and machines are doing most of the hard labour. A few Marxists have seen this, the 'tankie' types obviously haven't. They want to go back to the time when the Left wasn't as soy-fuelled... not seeing that 'woke capitalism' is probably just a natural development in Leftism rather than an aberration that could be undone. Contemporary normie life isn't about hard labour. It's about the 9-5 rat-race followed by a whole lot of television, porn, vidya games, partying and social media.

Having spent a lot of time looking at some quantitative voter statistics of Leftist parties in a few Western countries, 'economic Leftism' still has immense popularity with their voter bases. I don't think the 'economic Left' is yet a spent force. Yet 'woke capitalism' has some profound effects on the Left—capitalist stances like 'free trade' have become immensely popular where many Leftist parties once opposed them more than the Right. Of course, there is a Left-capitalist nexus on this issue. Leftists want free trade because they see protectionism as exclusionary, capitalists want free trade for self-explanatory reasons. They complement each-other very well.

Spot on about the 'intellectual destitution'. A hundred years ago it seemed that the Left was too intellectual and distanced from the 'normies' as a result. Now the Left is now in some ways opposite—completely 'lumpenified'. It is now the Right that has become vastly more intellectual—content creators like the EBL people are borderline impenetrable.