It’s appropriate to have doom to balance out encouragement. There’s two sides to every coin, and there’s reasons to support arguments in favor and arguments against. If it was cut and dried, there’d be no point in discussing politics.

I also find that people are motivated by different mindsets. I personally need hope of some kind to keep going. Thinking that we’re on the way to getting things better is how I don’t despair at politics and fall into a total depression. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. Some people need to think the doom is imminent and unavoidable. Others need to think that both outcomes are equally plausible. It’s just a variation on our personalities.

I’m saying all this because I don’t think it’s useful for anybody if I try and refute what you’re saying. I don’t know that I even disagree with it. There’s plenty of reasons to think poorly of our future. Your perspective is absolutely fair and valid. In some ways it’s audacious to have hope in light of it, but that doesn’t make my mindset better than yours.

At the end of the day, if we show up to vote to try and make things better, I don’t think there’s a significant difference. It’s two different roads that end up at the same destination. To some, the glass is half full, to others it’s half empty, but everyone can agree it isn’t as full as it could be.