alienating progressive voters
get people excited enough to vote
These seem like the same thing to me. Couldn't a progressive who feels alienated by the campaign also fully believe that Stein and maybe even West are agents of Russia and not want to vote for them? Could they have shown up and instead only voted on down ballot races instead?
I'd like to think that a plurality of voters are explicitly progressive, but it's a better explanation that popular policy and messaging gets people out, and unpopular policy and messaging doesn't.
I agree with this. People either feel like someone has answers to their anxieties about the future, or they don't. When they feel like they don't, they become non-voters.