The Democrats are the party of the emotional thinkers. "Can't you see group X is suffering, therefore Y must be done?" Any policy can be pushed through if it properly aligns with the virtue-signalling system that is put forward by the party. Conducting "humanitarian" wars, inviting corporate globalism that has decimated the middle class, and pushing a rigid top-down authoritarian system for the "betterment of mankind".

The Republican party is for the people who deny the importance of feelings, either because they never appreciated it in the first place or they were burned in the past by being misled by emotional appeals, and instead have to make the "cold, hard, fact-based decisions" about what to do. So all the "uncomfortable" policies and discussions are pushed through using the Republican party. Warmongering, making cuts to public funding, anti-immigration policies, strong in-group bias, etc.

By promoting politics as a tribalistic activity, the good team (our team) vs their bad team, then we will forever be biased. People find one of these two approaches attractive, and may adorn the clothes of that ideology, negative baggage and all (which they must now pretend doesn't exist, or downplay it).

So if we can see the middleground, that emotions and rhetoric both have their place, then we can see both parties have serious, serious flaws. And there are many ideas that aren't represented by either party, like anti-war policies, or a movement toward co-ops and democractically-owned workplaces and away from monopolies. Corporations have taken over both parties and the US is an oligarchy according to a Princeton study. So while there may be choices over social matters, there are no options when it comes to the things that might affect the profits of the corporations that have hijacked the government.

It's time for the two-party voting system to end because it has become a system of abuse and ownership, rather than freedom and choice. It needs to be replaced with a true multi-party voting system like Ranked Choice so that we can have true options that can compete on an even playing field.

Several states have already switched to multi-party voting systems, like Vermont. If enough states switch, it will also switch on the federal level.