seems like a giant waste of money when you have phone that has the time on it.

Those very kind / well meaning people would take more of an interest in their civic duties if they were truly well meaning.

To me, the people you describe still sound like assholes. Lazy assholes.

to counter, if you don’t think about / or want to think about politics at all, you’re probably a willfully ignorant, selfish, asshole.

politics may not be everything, but everyone is affected by them, whether or not you like it or acknowledge it. If you are socially responsible, you do the bare minimum of acknowledging politics and at least staying somewhat up to date rather than shunning it entirely.

dude, a lot of us have been banned from reddit for being overtly leftist. its a major reason lemmy even exists.