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if you're in a district or state that is securely for one party or the other you can literally vote however you want because it doesn't matter
electoralism strategy maybe only matters for people in states with competitive races
One of the perks of living in a +22D district is I can vote for what I actually want and at worst end up with a lib.
Since you're asking specifically about national elections, I'd say overall it doesn't matter. If you live in one of the few states (counties really) that actually decide the presidential election, then voting strategically for Dems makes sense, if it seems like harm reduction to you. I think the same argument goes for a senate seat or even congress that has a chance to be a toss up.
I think a lot of us overthink engaging in electoral politics because most of us were libs and therefore thought electoral politics is important, or have an over inflated sense of the importance of our own individual vote. The truth is as an individual, you might as well be asking, should i shout the name of candidate x into the void, or just forget about it. Our votes only matter as part of a group, an organization, or a movement
Defensive voting can be pragmatic and has the largest effect the more local the election. Bourgeois electoralism will never allow for the direct challenging of the bourgeois order. All past entryist efforts to work socialist politicians and politics into mainstream political parties via electoral wins have failed and been recuperated. Even when Lenin said you should vote for the people's candidate he said it in the context of putting forth a candidate from the socialist party as a measuring stick for the popularity of the movement, not because any positive outcome can be expected. There is a long and bloody history of what happens to socialist leaders once they've been democratically elected, it would be no different in the states. The only way to advance socialist politics is to create separate bases of power that are not reliant on existing institutions but that can instead contest those decaying institutions for authority, i.e. Lenin's concept of dual power.
So vote for the shark eyed libs in your district so the local foaming at the mouth fascist doesn't start a progrom against the gays, but time and time again national level electoralism has proven to be the dead end of left movements. And let's be clear that your local libs will still stab you in the back given the chance, they are sellouts and corporate whores who have covered up just as many rape scandals as the GOP. The democratic party is the graveyard of social movements
Here's what you do: Whatever you want.
From your list: Choose 1. Choose 4. Go to a PMC bar and declare you did 3 and score some free drinks. Choose them all. Choose none of them.
You know your vote doesn't matter much. So how much does it matter to you? Since my Left awakening, sometimes I vote, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I vote D, sometimes I vote 3rd party if available. Sometimes I write in my ex-roommates name and hope he somehow pulls off a longshot.
Basically, ask yourself how much strategy you're going to put into to something that ultimately yields nothing. You know the outcome already.
Do you consider yourself a marxist? could also post this to [email protected]