Memes

You don't know what legitimacy is?

I don't know how *you" are defining the word in this context.

Our political system rests on the consent of the people, because the people have the power of collective action when they are organized and/or believe en masse that the pathways by which the system claims to represent them are illegitimate

Yeah, that's a pretty big hurdle tho. Even when things get bad, most people are relatively unaffected. Things gotta get real bad for the people to take to the streets in revolt en masse. The masses are generally lazy.

The ruling class wouldn't work so hard to obscure their undemocratic nature if that wasn't the case

And they wouldn't work so hard to propagandize and gerrymander and purge voters if voting didn't threaten them at all.

People don't just accept those kinds of things, they resist and build power that does represent them. That is demonstrable throughout history

They actually usually do accept those kinds of things. The times when they actually rise up are rare enough to record in the history books. Typically most people just follow the path of least resistance.

Voting is not only going out to vote on the day of

Uh, yeah it is. There are plenty of other forms of activity around voting, but voting is just voting.

its people participating in democratic offices when they could be doing grassroots organizing

I don't know who told you you had to choose. Grassroots organizing is crucial for developing the broad foundation for the future. Electoral action secures stable conditions to grow those foundations.

Liberals will give grassroots movements empty lip service, conservatives will lock them up for terrorism. One of the two is objectively more favorable. That's the bottom line.

Voting isn't the total extent of action, it's one tool in a toolbox. When used strategically, it makes the other tools more effective.

It's fucking toxic

Yes, but it's here, and it's real, and it's decided by population numbers your human brain can't truly understand. People, for the most part, are partisan sports-brained idiots. For now, we're either going to try to ride the wave in a way that's least hostile to us, or we're gonna get crushed by the other half of the idiot population.

I was pretty clear and concise with my language. I said what I wanted to say. I'm not going to play point-for-point semantics with you because it would take me writing a several-pages-long essay to fully get my meaning across to someone who is clearly digging in their heels and not willing to take me in good faith. There's also theorists out there who have already done a far better job than I would at that but I doubt you would care to read them.

In short; try putting your ego aside, re-reading what I said, and thinking super hard about it. I've already answered all of your questions, you're just blocking them out at this point.

Astonishing, I could say this word for word to you, and it would be no less correct.

Perhaps the ego position of assuming everyone who disagrees with you is hostile or disingenuous is the biggest obstacle to leftist progress. Perhaps, if you yourself consider the content of their input instead of resorting to the same partisan sports-brain thinking you admit is so toxic, the left could become something more than a thousand mutually hostile splinter groups.