Anecdata, but in my experience most normal people (i.e. not extremely politically engaged) understand they're usually choosing between imperfect (often even les

Anecdata, but in my experience most normal people (i.e. not extremely politically engaged) understand they're usually choosing between imperfect (often even less-bad) options. I don't get the sense that there's a ton of cognitive dissonance required until you get into the Very Online subset of people for whom politics is their life. I think where the phenomenon you describe is extremely visible is in elected officials, especially at the federal level. You see an example now with Liz Cheney, who is in the process of transforming from a fairly generic Republican into a fairly generic Democrat as her political incentives change. The same can be observed going the other way with JD Vance moving from generic institutional Republican into post-liberal Trumpist (though perhaps the signs were there for those with eyes to see). The question then is whether the convictions were real or merely convenient.