Yes but the problem is despite all their blustering online, people only actually engage at the endgame stage of politics. All these "ideologically pure" leftists are doing jackshit to either ensure progressive leftist ideals win out over liberal ideals in the currently viable sorta left-presenting party or to support independent leftist political parties and groups in down-ballot, local elections, and community policy projects. No, instead these oh-so-great morally-superior "real leftists" instead want to bitch and moan about futility and then opt-out on big voting day while spouting virtues as if their behavior doesn't prevent real progressive change for the better, incremental though it may be.

And to very clear, I'm not taking the "fall in line or get out of the way" democrat bullshit stance here. If you really believe in the policy and values of a third party, please vote for them. I will never accuse an involved voter of throwing a vote away. I'm specifically talking about the large chunk of the left who are only left in theory, not practice, the ideological cosplayers who pretend anything less than absolute is not worth fighting for but who don't put in any effort to ensure that what they want even ever has a chance of ending up on the ballot in front of them.

It's easy to stand on virtue and say you won't support the lesser of two evils, but unless you're actively working on an alternative, the simple fact is that your abstained position enables the worst-case scenario which will have real-world impact. If we believe in leftist ideals, we should believe in reasonable harm reduction where possible. Same applies here.