Sadly, the effect of not voting for one of the 2 candidates is to intensify the power of the most extreme views. Say 100 people can vote. 25 on each side are going to vote for their party no matter what. 20 want something crazy in one direction and 20 in the other direction, and both sides are likely to protest and/or not vote if their guy doesn’t pander to them. That leaves 10 persuadable people – mostly people who are busy with other stuff and not paying attention to the minutia of various policies and the likely after effects they will cause.

What is a candidate to do? They pander to the crazies. They can hardly bother to assuage the persuadables because those folks aren’t paying attention anyway. They have to go after the people who might bail if they aren’t appeased. I hate the system, but there it is.