Neither was I. An activist Socialist can't do much except in local and state levels, at a national level it takes a mass worker party for electoralism to have any real bite.
That's why I call national elections loss prevention, because you can either vote to maintain the status quo, or let marginalized groups be attacked and vilified as fascists gain power.
Yes, which is why you have to combine that with grassroots movements. Just voting third party or for Trump gets fascists elected, and voting is therefore just loss prevention. To move to the left and improve things, Unionization, protesting, and organizing from the bottom-up is necessary.