ETA: I said most of this in the comments but to save people the scrolling I’ll say it here too.
This can be about elections but it isn’t exclusive to elections. If it wasn’t true between elections, I don’t think the situation would exist during elections.
The meme is specifically about the difference between the group that isn’t pretending to be good (100% evil) and the group that uses the other group as a threat to avoid pressure to become less evil themselves.
It does not offer a solution. It does not tell people what they should or could do. I think the problem is very broad and requires a diversity of tactics specific to local conditions, not a snappy easy fix that fits well in a meme. It does involve being able to discuss the parts of the machine that keeps the machine churning tho.
I’d believe you were sincere if I saw the same kind of posts when elections weren’t right around the corner.
Anyway the answer is that you can talk about it responsibly, but you have to look at the end result or consequences for each of the choices available to help determine the way forward. You can’t frame it as whether the party meets a particular threshold of goodness before it’s worthy of your vote. While there is a lot of low hanging fruit, not everyone will agree about everything and people are naturally resistant to change. It takes sustained effort.
It’s the responsibility of everyone in a democracy to participate so that parties are more representative of their constituents. Only a tiny piece of that participation involves voting.
I don’t think it makes sense for me to try and prove my sincerity as much as maybe explain why I don’t think this meme is useful if it’s only about elections.
Let’s make this about Ds and Rs so there is no ambiguous “they”. The meme shows the D party being asked to be slightly less evil. The D party says they are not willing to be nudged to be less evil and they would rather the Rs win then to give up on what they want to do.
Why would people think that means that not voting for them is an effective means of pushing them to be less evil? It wouldn’t make sense for this meme to continue with “and that’s why you shouldn’t vote for them!” What’s that going to change?
It’s a description of how they operate, not an instruction manual.