[Jumping Up and Down] Yes! This! Yes!!!

Greta Christina (at AlterNet) tells it straight.

A lot of factors go into [lower voter turnout among progressives], of course, including roadblocks to voter registration, voter ID laws, insufficient polling places, cutbacks on voting hours and early voting, and other forms of voter suppression. But voter disengagement, citizens' sense that government isn't about them and voting doesn't make a difference, sure doesn't help. And getting more people to the ballot box who can vote is one of the ways we can push back against the overt forms of voter suppression -- thus getting even more people to vote.

But being dismissed as "flyover people" doesn't instill folks with a burning desire to get involved in progressive politics. See 1 and 2 above. If we want more Americans to think of government as Us rather than Them, as the way a society pools its resources and makes decisions about those resources rather than as the evil cackling villains lording it over the plebes, we need to not play into the "plebes" narrative ourselves. Voter suppression and discouraging turnout is a major conservative tactic. Let's not help them.

Daisy Deadhead (Hi, Daisy!) and others have been saying this for ages.  (That's the Tumblr blog; the Blogger blog is in the sidebar.)