Like seriously, why isn't there at least one single leader or famous person who is uncompromisingly anticapitalist, good at organizing, gives rousing speeches and is actually willing to do illegal shit, get arrested, inspire people, actually writes new, relevant and useful theory and generally be an icon?
I keep reading about how we are entering the one of the most turbulent decades in history. Who do we have to represent us other than socdem politicians, podcasters and journalists? We are letting crisis after crisis go to waste. We are just wasting away...
Much of which your saying may be true, but isn’t fixed by the persuasion of “leftists.” The scale of the working class is just too massive.
Consciousness is mainly developed through people’s lived experience of their conditions and major events. The job of socialists is to give full expression to the consciousness as it exists, by tying it to the broader class struggle. You’re not really persuading people as much as giving them a framework to understand a class struggle that they are already aware of on some level.
You can do this on a massive scale by political means, putting forward platforms, demands on the state, and so on. Building a political alternative that people can actually see and gravitate towards.
Check out Chapter 2 of the Communist manifesto, it’s specifically about this.