electoralism

It's pretty simple, if your vote is for a 'lesser evil' that is a negative choice proposition, hardly worthy of the word 'choice' or 'democracy'. Two bad choices are still two bad choices, even if one is marketed as slightly less bad. The entire Dem strategy for like decades now has been this prisoners dilemma proposition. They never provide federal protection enshrined in law because that would take away the leverage of this strategy. The only way to break out of this pattern is to really threaten it directly by not acquiescing to it like good little liberals. That is why you have cognitive dissonance over this topic. The social pressure of 'lesser evil' is so deeply embedded in the liberal worldview that any questioning of it is adjacent to being a terrible right-winger.

The cultural war divide benefits Dems, so they do everything to perpetuate it instead of reconciling it. You need to comprehend this to have a realistic understanding of US political economy.

From what I've gathered in this thread, my vote is simultaneously completely worthless and inffective, yet also the most precious thing I should only give to the most worthy.

I think of it like this. In an ideal society (or at least vaguely functional political system), your vote would and should be precious. Yet in our shithole nation, this precious thing of yours is forced to be given to one of two genocidal evils. is the face of a party who pretends like they'll take your vote and do something useful. Stand up for minorities, do something about climate change, maybe reduce the mass social murder in this country, or just do fucking anything at all. Yet time and again, they only make things worse. If your vote is precious and should only be given to the most worthy, why give it to a racist, senile, sex offending, warhawk?

And we all know that to vote for anyone other than the two candidates is a useless gesture, accomplishing nothing. So in practical terms, voting in this nation is voting for one of this guy's two masks. Why fucking bother?

Edit to add-

I can agree Joe is a genocider and still vote for him instead of trump

Why? Why the shitting fuck would you decide "This genocider is deserving of my vote". That is a physical manifestation of your thought that this man should lead our country. You're not just passively thinking it, you're taking an active step to make sure that happens. If a daycare was trying to choose between John Wayne Gacy or Albert Fisch to be its director, it would be fucking insane to give it serious thought and then vote on one of them. You should demand to know why this is the choice in the first place, and not shrug and vote for one of them like a browbeaten little b----