Like most Americans, I grew up being told to "vote for the lesser of two evils." It doesn't matter if you're conservative or progressive, you vote for the lesser evil, because the other side are a bunch of red commies who are going to turn everyone gay or trans, or they're theocratic fascists who are going to force everyone to carry rape-babies to term.
This is rather extremist rhetoric, don't you think? I don't think most Americans generally vote for the "lesser of two evils." They often get behind an actual candidate. The kind of place where you might be right, it the bolded above, is very new, IMO.
My parents were counter-cultural types/hippies, so for me it was always "vote Blue no matter who." But I have since gotten off that track, and finally voted third party for the first time in 2016.
But I have since come to think that, in the long run, this approach actually perpetuates the problem and just reifies the two-party system. If you vote for one party or candidate just because the other guy is worse, you are essentially telling your choice that he/she/they only have to be slightly better than the other guy.
Again, I don't think that's the only way people vote. Such a cynical approach to politics.
So I think the only way it will change is if enough people say, "enough is enough" and stop voting for the Dem or Rep. In theory, it could lead to either the birth of new parties that have more than a snowball's chance in hell, and/or reformation of the parties so that they offer better candidates, and/or don't sabotage any candidate that doesn't adhere to the party line.
It would be useful if we could get off the two-party system, but we'd need the parties to go for it, which won't happen. Or soon. More and more localities and states ? are adopting a ranked-choice voting, which could eventually give more power to 3rd or alternate parties. I am in favor of this. If it is adopted by enough states, it could send 3rd party candidates to the House and Senate and eventually make the change. Probably not before I'm dead, though. But, still....
On the other hand, I think the problem is deeper than any politician, any party, or really any political system. People focus on "capitalism vs. socialism," when both are corruptible.
I agree that there is a focus on that in the US, when an amalgam of both is more desirable, IMO. All things are corruptible, but the US focus on the notion that it's either capitalism or socialism is a false construct. We have plenty of socialism in this country, which people want. Medicare? Medicaid? VA benefits?
Or people endlessly squabble about traditional vs progressive values, when 90% of people agree on a lot of basic things...and all of the wedge issues are framed to highlight and increase division among the populace
This, I agree with. Most people, in most countries, just want to live and let live. We agree on the basics, and don't tend to want to curtail the rights of others. Everyone just wants to be able to live within their means, raise their kids, be treated fairly.
(e.g. "You're transphobic if you won't date trans people" or "no abortions, even if you're raped or going to die").
This is hyperbole beyond what was necessary, and I see you freaked Federberg out with it. Was that necessary? Does it have any basis in fact? Though the 2nd part has some truth in legislature.
I mean, Noam Chomsky have written extensively about this: how a government propagandizes through dividing the people, so that they think the problem is the other half of the citizenry, rather than the psychopathic corporate oligarchs that both Republicans and Democrats ultimately serve.
This is, in part, the problem of only capitalism and not a mix-in of socialism. It goes way back to US government (and conceding to the Confederacy,)
dividing poor blacks and poor whites to keep them from rising up against the power elite.
