[kitku]

I am still amazed by the typical internet American's (Yours also I presume) love for voting, despite having long degraded into a two-party charade.

Your sentiment starts out fierce: "constantly, actively..." and is immediately cut short "... choose to (only?) vote it that way."

You point out that voicing one's interpretations of the 2nd amendment is powerless - but voting, reduced to such a miniscule gesture, is also. The choice between a galloping right wing and a stagnant center-right is no choice at all. American elections are a facade for decisions already made on top. You can't vote it out.

[rwmj]

How (and if) you vote is really the one and only thing politicians care about.

[inigyou]

They care about appearing to care about it. In reality if they don't think you'll vote the right way they just prevent you from voting, like with a vaccine passport or an ID card. (See? Both sides covered)

[asdff]

This is why it is important to vote in primary elections as well.

[crote]

Voting the way you really want in primary elections might be counterproductive.

Let's say in the main election 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side X, 45% of the population will vote for whatever candidate represents side Y, and 10% is more-or-less in the middle.

If, during the primaries, side X votes for a far-X candidate, they will definitely lose the middle 10% to a moderate-Y candidate, leading to a strong Y victory. But if side X votes for a moderate-X candidate during the primaries, the main election will be moderate-X vs moderate-Y, and they have a pretty good chance of securing the slightly-more-than-half of the middle they need for an X victory.

Of course you now end up with a lukewarm moderate X victor who isn't going to represent your far-X views, but at least you're not dealing with an even worse Y-side victor.

The real solution is to get rid of the winner-takes-all system inherently resulting in a two-party election, but Good Luck doing that kind of overhaul!

[Terr_]

Quibble: I think you're conflating "no winner take all" with "less spoiler effect". The first implies the second but not vice-versa.

For example, ranked-choice voting would reduce the spoiler effect, but it would not (on its own) affect that there's a single-winner to each race who "takes all" in the end.