The debate gets interesting sometimes

As one party loses power it changes strategy to regain it, as one party gains power it is able to differentiate more amongst different ideologies within the party. If this goes far enough it can cause one party to fade to obscurity and a new party to emerge. There is no perfect candidate who represents everyone perfectly, you pick the candidate that is closer to the place you'd like to be. Also, third party votes work much better bottom-up vs top-down. Statistically no amount of crazy upset will cause a third party to actually win the top position despite no groundwork being done. Support third party candidates in small races where small grassroots efforts not funded by major political action groups are actually likely to make a difference. Then when you get a good candidate, organize and vote to see them advance to higher positions. It is batshit lunacy to expect third party candidate votes to matter in a presidential election when we don't even have a single third party state governor, zero third party national representatives and only 4 independent senators, none of whom even represent a third party, and none of whom are presidential candidates this election (let alone viable ones). Campaign for and support third party mayors, city councillors, comptrollers, sheriffs, union representatives. You have a very real shot with them and if enough people do that and enough of them move up to higher positions, then that party can start to swing some weight around at a higher and higher level.

Edi: Oh, and if you don't see an option in your local elections, run or encourage others to do so!

I've been trying to explain this in all these threads ad-nauseum but no one seems to get it.
Basically, if more people vote for the left-most party everyone's policies move to the left.
- That's like saying you can get to zero by choosing the line climbing away from zero the slowest.
  Relative Left is not the same as Absolute Left and it will never be actually move to the Left if the thing it's relative to keeps going even more to the Right.
  This is why one of the most worrisome thing in the current Democrats is that their electoral strategy is almost purely one of relativism - they almost entirely stopped selling themselves on the good of the things they do and pretty much only sell themselves relatively to Trump.
  A "not as bad as the other guys" strategy is not the same as wanting to be the "good guys".
  
  That’s like saying you can get to zero by choosing the line climbing away from zero the slowest.
  It's not like saying that at all. You've completely misunderstood my meaning.
  The dems are "climbing away from zero slowly" because they're trying to woo voters from the republicans as the will of the voting public moves to the right. If everyone votes for the dems the republicans will need to shift their policies to the left to pursue the voters. The dems in turn will need to move further to the left to differentiate from the republicans.
  
  That sounds like whishful thinking.
  I mean, beautiful, lovelly and well meaning, but totally ignoring that both Democrat and Republican politicians (who, after all, are but humans in an environment telling them "greed is good" and who for the most part seem to believe it) are motivated by primarily by money and for them votes are but a means to an end (4 more years with their hands in the kind of power that can be used to make very wealthy, very thankful friends).
  I think you are projecting yourself (IMHO a person driven by principle and with a political ideology) into the kind of people who are experts at the dirty business of playing politics and getting fat checks from donors and concluding that they would do what you would do in their position, even when the last 3 decades of politics in the US indicate the very opposite.
  Some politicians in American might indeed be principled (Sanders almost certainly is), but most seem to be just highly skilled manipulators driven by personal upside maximization.
  Highly skilled manipulators driven by personal upside maximization aren't going to start working for the common good instead of making choices with the power they are entrust which will make them very wealthy and very thankful friends, if they think the Left are suckers and the leftwing vote is guaranteed if they use the usual lies.
  
  It's not wishful thinking. It's just obvious.
  You're dead right in that politicians are greedy assholes.
  They want to win elections and to do that they need votes.
  What would the republican party do if they'd lost miserably in every election in the last decade? Obviously they would shift their policies to the left in order to be more popular.
  What would the democrats do if the republicans moved to the left? Obviously they would have to move further to the left to minimise the votes lost to the republican party.
  As the population votes on the left, political policy moves to the left. This seems so plainly obvious to me.
  
  Democrats only put forward a slightly more leftie candidate either after they lost an election or after they came very close to losing one. Republicans haven't put forward a more leftie candidade ever, even when they lost elections.
  Sure, in a theoretical America were 80% of Americans were unshakeable convict lefties, it would make sense that both parties turn Left if they lost too many votes because that would be were 80% was that those people, being unshakeable in their political convictions, would not buldge from them.
  However the Left in America is but a small minority and both parties have decades of actual proof that it's perfectly possible to keep the Left small with the right kind of propaganda because that's what they've done, again and again and again - the American political "center" isn't way to the Right of that in most of Europe by chance and wouldn't be moving even more to the Right not just in America but everywhere because people's political convictions are unshakeable and unchangeable.
  Further, if there is one thing Trump has proven is that it's absolutelly feasible to move a huge fraction of voters even more to the Right when they were already very much into the Right (i.e. from Reaganism to pretty much Fascism).
  Your entire theory is anchored on the idea that the electorate doesn't move, it's the politicians who move, when everything in History and even Present day, not just in Politics but even Marketing, not just in Democracy but in Authocracy, shows that the vast majority of people are incredibly easy for those who have control over a suficient fraction of the Press to push in the direction they want them to go.
  (FOX News would not have the influence it has in American politics if people's political convictions were unshakeable).
  Add that factor to your thinking and it makes a lot more sense that the crooked politicians looking for a payout from doing politics for very rich people would favour using propaganda to convince people that doing what's best for the rich is the right thing to do or that the fault of the problems in America is entirelly of immigrants so all the real solutions are around immigration ("and ignore all the tax cuts for the rich and deregulation I'm doing over here") rather than moving to were people were politically and doing what people wanted instead of what's best for the rich - the propaganda option works and guarantees that the mainstream politicians who chose to shift the electorate with propaganda instead of moving to were the electorate is, keep leaving politics far more wealthy than they came in.
  Look around at Politics in American since at least Reagan and what I described in the paragraph above is exactly what has been happenning and is still happenning.
  
  Sorry mate, you just haven't understood anything I've said.
  Of course the electorate can move. More people need to vote for the dems. Politicians will chase the votes.
  
  I'll leave you to your fantastical notions, which are contrary to pretty much all Historical evidence in Psychology, Marketing and Politics, about how people behave, both inside and outside Politics.
  
  What you're calling fantastical notions are well understood concepts of political science.
Holy shit someone with a brain.
- On lemmy? Probably just swamp gas.

I’d generally agree, but the problem is that this particular instance is much higher stakes than most elections.

Generally speaking, the worst case scenario would be someone like John McCain taking the reins instead of Obama. I didn’t agree with McCain about a lot of things but he was a generally honorable guy who wanted to do the best for American democracy.

Now we have a group who is polling to win and outright saying “America needs a dictatorship”. If they get their way, it could be the last election we ever have.

That's how bad the situation is: McCain is an example of someone who wanted to do the best for American democracy.
- McCain was a conservative and I don't agree with his policies but compared to today's Republican Party, he was a knight in shining armor. He spoke and acted in good faith, at least.

How do you get electoral reform when no one you vote for gets elected, and everyone who does get elected has no reason to pay any attention to your opinion?

In my state, ballot initiatives to change to ranked choice or approval voting, ideally with expanded multiple winner districts.