Wallace was a lib. I love Infinite Jest, but he was a big ol libby lib (and, it should be noted, an abusive sexual harasser). try to read his piece on John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign without vomiting on your keyboard. it’s clever, incisive, and compelling, and if you know anything about the subject matter, steaming horseshit. (also if you feel like it try to find his essay where he complains about campus political correctness). I’d like to believe if he hadn’t bit the big one, his capacity for empathy and his distaste for the barbarity of the right would have pushed him slightly to the left of his academic upper middle class millieu, but once he got a twitter account, he would keep saying dumb shit, get clowned on mercilessly (not to mention accused of sexual harassment), and eventually sign that big Anti-Cancel Culture letter.

anyway here his argument is definitely flawed, but he starts from a very reasonable observation, which is that the political system is designed to induce apathy, and it’s successful for most people. his mistake is misidentifying the act of voting as a rebellion against the apathetic project, rather than participation in it.