Rebecca Solnit with some important observations about why we need to take action and what to do about the people who choose to sit on the sidelines and be discouraging:

When you don't assume the outcome, you recognize that you may be able to participate in shaping it; perhaps more participants might have further determined the outcome, which was decided by one tie-breaking vote from the vice-president. That is the most basic tenet of hope, that the future is being made in the present, does not yet exist, and committing to it means a shrugging off of all the false prophets who as cynics, defeatists, and even optimists pretend that the future has already been decided. All these are postures from the sidelines, and they are postures that excuse and justify being on the sidelines, which is maybe their real agenda.

Cynicism is a dominant force in today’s political discourse, with some good reason and a favorite approach of the world’s political hobbyists." They quote another writer, Eitan Hersh, who calls people who follow and comment on politics without really participating "political hobbyists" and Kaba and Hayes continue: "It is important to understand the distinction between activists, organizers, and political hobbyists. Such hobbyists will often have very strict political standards, either around respectability or radicalism, to which few activists ever seem to rise. If you organize anything political, you are likely to attract the criticism of hobbyists, since for some people, critique is a pastime. Of course, organizers make genuine mistakes that political hobbyists may react to, but the fact is, making mistakes is a consequence of trying. The more you take action, the more errors and missteps you will make along the way. A person who has attempted nothing can easily point to the fact that they have never failed, but what have they built? What have they healed?"

I think back to the phrase climate journalist David Roberts coined a decade ago, the "doing it wrong brigade," for those people on the sidelines who tell those who are doing the work that they should be doing it differently, criticizing their tactics, goals, alliances, or some other thing that falls short of perfection since as Hayes and Kaba point out, when you're not doing anything you can set impossible goals and then lounge about figuring out how those doing the work fall short.

... Chait has provided us with an excellent example of what I have come to think of as One Ring syndrome." That is, that each and every bit of activism should identify the One Ring to Rule Them All--yes, from Lord of the Rings--and then drop it in Mount Doom, saving us all forever, and that anything that took on anything that wasn't the One Ring was taking on the wrong cause.

... and one thing you have probably noticed is that the people prophesying defeat almost never come back to admit they were wrong; usually they're off prophesying some new defeat instead).

It is up to us to do what we can. And for us to do it, we need to learn to dismiss and reject the defeatism and cynicism of those on the sidelines.