It’s more than just damage control. Everything you said should be enough to get people to vote, but the sad reality is reducing it to that may not be enough. If you’re reading this and considering whether or not to vote, OP is 100% correct. You need to do it. Make no excuse, get it done. But try to feel good about it too. You’re not just voting for one person, you’re voting for an entire administration, and Biden has proven himself in that regard. Under a Biden administration you’re going to have competent people working at all levels of the federal government, which is a big deal. Biden’s administration has done a lot of good as well that is easy to gloss over in favor of focusing on his negative attributes:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/02/joe-biden-30-policy-things-you-might-have-missed-00139046

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-opinion-biden-accomplishment-data/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/

You also need to be at the polls to vote for your down-ballot candidates. Do not underestimate the importance or closeness of those races.

No candidate is ever going to be perfect for you. Personally I wish we were finishing the 8th year of a Bernie Sanders presidency. But that doesn’t mean that because I didn’t get it perfectly the way I want it I’m going to take my ball and just go home. I hate the democrat strategy right now, but please don’t let yourself be told that Biden has been a bad president. He’s done some things you can be happy about and some things you can wish were different. If you want to see those differences, the best way you can do that is to be politically active and work for that change. Not participating means you forfeit that right.

doddering old man who is experiencing rapid cognitive decline

Only in the media. Also, according to the media, the orange 34 count felon is completely fine, A-okay, in fact.
Get a grip America. Biden's policies are popular with Democrats AND Republicans

If you want to be more strategic, if you can convince right wingers to not vote that also can make a difference. Feed your red-hat uncle's ideas about how voting is rigged so he shouldn't bother. Tell your maga neighbor you'll drive him to the polls and then don't.

This is an existential crisis. Don't think the right wing won't do anything they can to win.

The problem is, the people who are swayed by this argument were already going to vote Blue no matter who.

To win the election, you need to convince voters who are still doubting between Trump and Biden. And they have definitely heard this argument before, so a different argument is needed.

Ohio used to be a swing state, too, right? Not sure of it still is or if it isn't, how that turned around. But maybe they should be in the list?

Important to talk to people we know, and make sure they actually vote.

Idiocracy is a better timeline, the president tried to put the smartest person in charge. Good luck getting that in our reality.

parallels with Idiocracy

Bro, life's been like that for some people, for forever.

A 145 IQ isn't that crazy, like 1 in 1200 people. About the same frequency as someone transitioning.

But an intellectual deficiency is defined as 30 points lower than frame of reference, which is normally 100.

For someone at 145, about 84% of humanity is at least 30 points lower. And in your day to day life, you're not gonna run into that other 16% often

So if one of them was the reference point, like Not Sure in Idiocracy, then this is already idiocracy.

"Ignorance is bliss" isn't just a saying, being intelligent fucking sucks.

Similar feelings when you read books set in 1930s Europe.

"I want to leave, but Grandmere would never survive such a long voyage."

I've been using the term "pre-dystopia" to describe life right now.

I'm not voting for Biden to get major changes. I'm voting for him to make sure I can keep voting in the future.

One of the part of Project 2025 is using the military to crush protests, and it will have dire consequences to the whole world. I'm pretty sure the American christofascists will have a much better time exporting their censorship to other countries than China and Russia does, especially if they can just kick out (or jail, or even assassinate) any content provider not doing their dirty job to all regions.

However, some parts of the military are very progressive (they could just betray Trump, side with the people, etc.), and one could make memes about how one can make Molotov cocktails, how to illegally modify your regular AR-15 into a fully-automatic rifle, or how to turn a high pressure washer into a flamethrower.

Best I can do is upvote the memes.

That's the crux of social media. Connects like-minded people yet neuters their effectiveness because they think engagement does something in the real world.

Just make sure that, in taking to the streets, nobody mistakes you for a Hamas or an Antifa

Remember how in Harry Potter Voldemort returns at the end of year 4, but instead of dealing with it, Fudge and his crownies decide to claim Dumbledore and Harry are lying or delusional? And then they proceed to attack them, while ignoring the things happening like people disappearing and stuff, that are attributed to Voldemort by Dumbledore? For like an entire year until Fudge literally sees Voldemort in the ministry?

We are in this period.