There is not nearly as much to fix locally as nationally. I live in a blue state, but if it’s bad enough, I can move or enact change at the county level.
The problem is the Federal monster, which for 100 years has gotten us in useless wars and killed us, taxed our earnings, regulated us, made our currency worthless, and forced us and our descendants into never-ending debt to other nations. All this while exceeding the rule of law, the conditions upon which our states agreed to enter into this union.
I do not think this author read Atlas Shrugged. Agree with it or not, by reading it you have to think through the question: whether, by staying in the fray, economically or politically, we perpetuate the tyranny.
The author also fails to consider other ways that possibly don’t enable statism. Changing a corrupt government or a corrupt party may not be possible, due to how those in power have set it up.
Consider other legal ways that may take decades, but have a chance: a third “limited Federal” party, or secession.
Conservatives in the House had their chance, but blew it by re-electing Boehner as Speaker. There must be something in the water in DC.
I'm torn, but I'm leaning toward the approach of Francisco d'Anconia:
If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do? I don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him? To shrug.