Candidate three might be a Nazi or a communist or they might not. Same goes for candidates four and five. The point is that in our current system the combined ~1 million votes they get isn’t anywhere near enough to matter compared to the ~70 million each received by the two major parties.

Our choices suck. I agree, and we should work to fix that.

But we have a system for fixing it, and we need to fix the sytem to fix anything else. The system is run by two parties.

We can try to fix the system by fixing one of the two main parties, but then that party has to win or all of our hard work is meaningless.

We can try to fix the system by supporting a third party, but the system prevents third parties from being competitive, so we need to fix the system before this is a viable option. This option includes violent solutions, where by we overthrow the government by force. This is, in a way, supporting a third party, and in the same way it is completely unrealistic. You’re not going to take down the US government with the firearms they let you buy.

We can try to fix the system by appealing to all voters that both parties need to be fixed. The problem there is that one of the parties is only viable because the system is broken. It is the party of corruption. You cannot appeal to that party’s sense of duty or propriety, because it explicitly opposes those concepts on principle.

So we’re left with three imperfect solutions to a difficult problem. A fourth option is to give up and fuck off. But that’s not so much a solution as a concession.

Of the three, only one of them seems actually viable. None are guaranteed to succeed, but at least one could conceivably be successful. The other two are doomed by design. Especially during the election season, when it’s too late to enact meaningful change to the structure of the elections.