The perspective may well be self-fulfilling, but it's a perspective held by nearly all voters, so it will self-fulfill whether or not I personally believe it.

Yes, if the entire electorate would just wake up and realize they can vote for anyone they want, then it would no longer be a two-party system. And if a benevolent immortal dictator spontaneously materialized in the White House, we wouldn't need to mess about with this democracy nonsense at all anymore. The second one is not substantially less likely to happen than the first, so it's pointless to consider.