I think they get that, but it's a kind of carrot-and-stick tactic. You don't really get an option; you get a guarantee that you either vote for 1: pure, eldritc

I think they get that, but it's a kind of carrot-and-stick tactic. You don't really get an option; you get a guarantee that you either vote for 1: pure, eldritch evil, 2: milquetoast status quo with vague promises of reform that you aren't really enthused for but at least it's not Satan himself, or 3: throwing your vote directly into a landfill for a foolish ideal that is literally impossible under the current system. Pragmatists should vote for the realistic option that benefits us the most, but that's not how most people work. People aren't really rational actors. If you continuously prove to the public that real reform is a stupid dream and that they must play the game and take the shitty carrot instead of the incredibly shitty stick, they rebel--even if it's not in their best interest. It's not reasonable to point out that they shouldn't do this. Of course they shouldn't, but they always will. For authoritarians, they see options 1: and 2: from the first paragraph switched around relative to progressives. They aren't the same at all--not even a little--yet still there isn't really any meaningful choice to be made. There is only a vicious, cynical threat. Vote for what your region's culture considers least evil or watch as Armageddon devours you and your loved ones. The constant near-perfect tie races are suspicious as hell. Haven't you ever noticed that? It's always 51-49 or somewhere thereabouts after the electoral college, gerrymandering and all the other forms of sophistry obfuscate the direct vote tallies--which always differ far more. Always. Also notice the incumbency rate compared to approval ratings. Incumbency is nearly perfect, even though approval is always sub-20%. Often it's far lower than 20%. This should obviously be impossible in pure democracy, but it should also be incredibly rare in our representative republic. But it's the rule, not the exception. In my opinion this is a smoking gun that just can't be dismissed. This is rigged. Not the same way that crude authoritarian regimes fake their elections, with blatant but effective mafia tactics. This is structurally rigged. This is a hateful ploy that is designed to make real reform impossible, or at least slow enough for existing power structures to readjust and maintain full ownership of new trends, and furthermore to make us grateful for the barest minimum of political functioning: simply that we aren't living under a violent totalitarian state. Both sides are certainly not the same. But the structure within which both sides operate is not designed with the best interests of the American people or the world in mind. I don't think it's some shadowy conspiracy that was masterminded by a single agent, it's just a ludicrously shitty system that naturally evolved out of our country and was taken advantage of by various opportunists. Our market style makes that very easy and very rewarding. Or at least it was at the outset, before power structures ossified and became strongly entrenched.