Mad at current candidates?! Join your local org; make better candidates. Protest by becoming a delegate instead.

Red or blue or green -- more of us involved at the lower levels means more representation at 'the top'. (at least Democratic; I don't know how the republican party works)

If we are staring down the barrel of a Gavin Newsom presidential run, and we all think that's a terrible idea (right?), we still have ability to push for and find better candidates by being part of the local precincts, who send delegates eventually to the national committee.

Where do you think those 'super delegates' come from, who is helping pick how to spend DNC advert money? The people who elect DNC leadership came from precincts.

What if I was 0% likely to vote for either of them?

"Third-party" in the context of US politics (I think that's where it comes from and is most widely used, owing to its major structural problems that almost inherently create only two major parties federally) is an abstract term referring to any minor political party, not specifically the third-most-popular. There's no such thing as "voting fourth-party", so an nth level of abstraction beyond that becomes absurdist.

Yeah I live in Australia where we have preferential voting.

I have always voted left of our major parties, because like the rest of the world, our major "left wing" party is centre right and our right wing is way too far to the right. Everyone right if that is extremely racist or a billionaire. Usually both.

But we have options, and even if the major party wins they have to negotiate with the smaller parties if we've won them seats in parliament. Voting for the minor parties and independents first based on policy sends a message that these are the things that matter to us. If they want to win the next election they'll have to support them or we'll continue voting for the minor parties.

The liberals (our right wing party) handled covid and the following months so poorly that they were essentially ousted in western Australia. They are so small now that they hold the same amount of power as the minor parties. Labor (the "left wing" major party) won 46 of the possible 59 seats and the liberals only got 7. They've had to form a coalition with the slightly more right wing minor party to have any voting power. Which has caused them to slip even further right and lose even more votes in the following local elections.

or... representative democracy. where nobody "wins", and the percentage of votes decides the percentage of representatives in parliament.

In most states, primaries are how a party picks its own nominee. Voting in the Democratic or Republican primary chooses which Democrat or Republican is on the November ballot. It doesn’t help a third party at all. Many third parties don’t use state-run primaries; they nominate at conventions. And in closed-primary states, like Maryland, you can only vote in the primary of the party you’re registered with.

The bigger hurdles come before and after the primary. First, a third party has to get on the ballot. That usually means collecting petition signatures or meeting a vote or registration threshold, and the rules differ by state. Then the candidate has to win a plurality in the general election, where the spoiler dynamic pushes voters back toward the two major parties. Primaries don’t change either of those.

Some primary systems make it worse. California and Washington use “top-two” primaries, where only the two highest finishers advance regardless of party. Third-party candidates almost never place top two, so they’re usually absent from the November ballot entirely.

The system is wired against third parties. They have to work significantly harder just to be eligible to be voted for.

That's why you can't "Just vote in the primaries"

Except the DNC icing out Bernie in 2016 clearly indicates that they aren't actually democratic, they clearly indicated that they are a private org with no legal requirements to enact the will of the people.

All that said, you better believe I'm still voting for the not fascist party, but also still trying in my weak little ways to advocate and advance ranked choice voting to enable the undermining of the two party system.

A literal court case affirming that the DNC isn't obligated to respect the will of its voters is "just" a "talking point" or "propaganda?"

Methinks your catchy little slogan "vote blue no matter who" is actually the propaganda/talking point, pot meet kettle.