Hmm, byline: “Eitan Hersh, Associate professor of political science at Tufts University”

If we accept the article’s description of the problem, the author would seem to be one of its architects. I mean, if the problems is really that college-educated voters are doing what they see as engaging in politics but “haven’t the faintest idea how to push for what they care about in their own communities,” whose failing is thar, if not professors of political science?

Though actually the article also states but seems to fail to grasp the significance of a contrary and more important point: the people it targets are “pretty comfortable with the status quo.” Which suggest the real issue isn't that they don't know what they are doing and would be better served doing something else, but that they are quite effectively deploying their political power to serve their interest by engaging in performative gestures while practically acting as a boat anchor preventing the political system moving out of their zone of comfort.

They aren't ineffective hobbyists, they are effective motivated agents protecting the status quo.