So it's time to change the system. Ranked choice voting and a third party could make a world of difference. Continuing to give all your money to an entity you don't trust isn't a working plan. It leads to, for instance, the COVID response.

Defeatism around something so critically important to the success of a country isn't a plan.

I was not trying to suggest defeatism, just sick of hearing voting in the current system as a reasonable response to anything. Not saying don't vote, just saying stop suggesting it's the way to fix specific problems. Voting probably won't fix most problems.

Absolutely, one of the big systemic changes we need to effect is a switch to ranked choice voting. There are several other significant changes to the US's voting system that would also be needed. Things like a complete elimination of voting machines, and honestly a full switch to vote-by-mail would probably help.

Of course, the voting system in this country isn't even the biggest problem, some how. Things need to change before next election, not in a few election cycles.

There are many layers of power. You have senators, house representatives, and a president. You also have local (includes police services) and state representatives. The executive branch is just one of many governments you get to vote for.

As long as there isn't a better system, voting for the lesser evil seems like the least one could do. You can continue the fight for a better system when you don't have an actively racist president for example.

I'm not proposing not voting. I'm just sick of hearing it offered as if it's somehow a solution to the increasingly obvious fact that the US government is fundamentally incapable of doing the basic things expected of it by it's citizens, like being trusted to not abuse it's power when doing things like gating access to potentially dangerous software.

Obviously it would be really REALLY nice if there was a trustworthy entity who could do that, but it's pretty absurd to suggest that if we simply vote for the other guy suddenly the US government will be that entity.