This drives me crazy. Having an essentially neutral stance on anything in the Middle East should be the preferred stance of any US President at this point. It is a no-win quagmire.

There are a few geopolitical aphorisms that Western empires have discovered the hard way and that the US should remember (but probably won't because, you know, US exceptionalism):

Never invade Russia. Never invade Afghanistan. Never fight a land war in Asia. Add to that, never invest any political capital in the Middle East. There is just no winning these conflicts and it is delusional to try. The only way to win conflicts like that is the way Stalin and Mao did it, and that is not our way. These places are the very definition of quagmire for western powers.

Now, imagine if Trump managed to win the next election because young Democratic voters are mad about Biden's stance on Israel/Palestine and decide to stay home on election day. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's because there aren't enough progressives. I vote as progressive as I can in primaries. For some races it has paid off, and for others, well maybe next time.

Try building an actual third party. Not by putting someone up for President every 4 years. That's a waste of time, money, and effort. Get people into school boards, city councils, and county comptroller. Then aim for state congress and other positions at the state level. Now push for changing the voting system to something that doesn't have a glaring problem like First Past the Post does.

A huge chunk of the changes progressives want are better done at the state and local level, anyway. Until then, we'll keep getting what we get at the federal level.

Why is it always progressives who have to hold their nose and “vote blue no matter who”? Centrist Democrats have been driving the car for decades

Because we're a minority and the options are the party that now gives us significant representation for our demographic (103 members of the House, and 1 (sadface) senator) or the party that thinks anyone left of "moderate-right" should be thrown out of a helecopter over the ocean.

The US is designed to change slowly, and even fixing that is designed to take time.

What you keep asking us to do isn’t compromise, it’s to stay in an abusive relationship where you get to make all the rules and we deal with it in silence

No. What we're asking you to do is pick the loveless relationship where your party buys you supermarket flowers once a year over Jeffery Dahmer. The Dems don't abuse us. We just don't have the votes and constitutents to do something worthwhile. You do realize that if a moderate compromises too progressive, they get replaced with a Republican, right?

So why don't we fight in-party for more representation and educate voters that we're not the boogey man, instead of threatening to murder the whole country to get our way like the bloody Repubs do?

Because of the electoral college. That forces a two-party system. Which is why we're in this terrible situation.

It also does nothing to stop a progressive from running as a democrat.

Stunt candidates like Jill Stein are grifters who do not give a single solitary fuck about the state of the world, and anyone considering a candidate like that is also extremely unlikely to run themselves.

I have friends who voted for Nader. They thought they were making a statement too. Then we got into Iraq II and they were very upset by it. We also got John "fuck voting righs" Roberts and Samuel "bitches be hoes" Alito out of the deal. Don't be stupid.

Watching a bunch of tiktok gronks give their brilliant hot takes on how they don't have to vote for Biden is like watching a drunken fratboy who's holding everyone's phones dancing on a cliff rim because someone told them not to. Stupid fuck. It doesn't work like that.

Funny how Biden turned out to be a lot less centrist than we were expecting. The pendulum is swinging left, and if we don't keep pushing in the right direction the progress will stop. Just because we're not getting everything we want right now doesn't mean we're not in the process of getting there. So stop bitching about how you don't have the perfect candidate right now. Vote in the primaries for the most progressive candidates you can find, and then in the general election vote for the best candidate, even if it's not your preferred choice.

Adulthood is about dealing with the world as it is, not the world we insist we should have. We have to be the adults in the room when no one else is willing.

What is the viable option, then?

Tell me you don't understand math & game theory without telling me you don't understand math & game theory.