At that time a social revolution emerged that in reality was anti government and steeped in libertarian values. The new left is something very different.
I think that an inside cadre of power hungry opportunists and totalitarians seized upon the vulnerability of people with low self esteem and an inherent laziness and took control of them with propaganda oriented issues aimed at simple minds in small segments of society. Over the years they have been able to bring these small populations together as one voting community that thinks it has a mutual goal. But the goal is never defined and a vision for success is never spelled out beyond, "we are fighting for you".
It has morphed into a sort of liberal monarchy where the royals who want nothing to do with the garbage they are selling and the people they control, rule with the consent of their minions who generally get nothing in return but more promises. Thus they have created a vast contingency of followers who really know little about who or what they are following.
I've repeatedly asked democrat followers what they want in the long run and invariably they either cannot say what it is or they timidly share a vision that is in reality very similar to what many conservatives want.
So, what I have come up with in my pedestrian way of looking at this is that a very driven power hungry society of elitists has found the perfect formula for unchecked power an unlimited riches. Their support comes from supporters who are very much naive in the belief that they will be taken care of because they heard it on the news.
In the end, liberalism is about power for the elites and social anarchy for the followers, many of whom have no idea what they are voting for, or why they are voting in the first place.
Very nice summary. I try to sum it up like this:
The primary beneficiaries of a socialist program are the socialist politicians. The secondary are the bureaucracies, and tertiaries are the supposed recipients. Everything after is fluff.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions. — Thomas Paine