One of the worse outcomes for progressives is if it sounds like we aren't voting for Biden and he wins anyway cause it just means that we can be ignored and don't matter.
This is, unfortunately, rather naive.
Progressive policies ALSO fuck with the bottom line. So the Democratic Party Elite won't ever do more than a tentative half-step in the right direction and then compromise on that half-step, no matter how far away from the right direction the country has gone since the last election.
They already have written off progressives as a result.
Anytime the dems win, it's "despite" those "nasty" progressives trying to make them unelectable and "scare away moderate republicans!"
Anytime the dems lose, it's "all the fault of those sexist bernie bros for deliberately throwing the election, even if the numbers don't line up with that theory!"
The only way progressive policies get passed is if enough progressives get into congress that the Dem Elites are FORCED to compromise.
If progressives fall in line, they go "Of course! Where ELSE were you going to go, see, we can clearly ignore your demands since you'll just fall in line anyway". If they don't fall in line "Oh, progressives were never gettable and they're also the reason we have trump. Blame them for everything"!
Power just does not want to be challenged.
...Personally, I lean more on the "at least perform damage mitigation" side of the fence, especially with the pandemic and open facism going on, but I can't super blame people for just checking out because "it's all hopeless, fuck everything". Overall, we just need to realize that this is a fight we'll be having for decades to come, and there are no easy solutions or ways to make the rich and powerful bend.