This is why conservatives and libertarians always lose. The leftists completely understand how a bunch of small victories lead to what they want. Conservatives and especially libertarians want 100% perfection on absolutely everything on day 1. Leftists are willing to do the long game. Making the argument that the lesser of two evils argument here is the same as Bush vs. Gore/Kerry, Obama vs. McCain/Romney is just absurd.
You think leftists aren't pushing for their vision of perfection?
The reason they win is because they know politics is the equivalent of a negotiation, and they are better negotiators than conservatives or libertarians.
You do not find a middle ground and run on that. You run on extremes and when everyone dials back your extreme to a moderate position, suddenly what everyone understands to be the moderate position has moved more in your direction.
You think leftists aren't running on the following?
-We're gonna cut off your daughter's tits and make you pay for it, and if you say boo you're off to gulag.
-We're gonna take away your car, replace it with a 10,000lb golf cart that costs $80k after the federal subsidies, requires $20k in maintenance every 5 years, reports everywhere you've been to the NSA, and has a remote kill switch, and if you say boo, you're gonna lose your job.
-We're gonna make you cover your face in public for eternity, and if you say boo, we're gonna weld your doors shut like they did in China.
It mystifies me that anyone can think for half a second that the left isn't playing for 3000% of what they could live with. They know how to negotiate. They've been pushing for the ridiculous end of their position for 30 years+, and we are so, so very far past "they're gonna take our guns and make us pay for socialized healthcare" that I don't really know how to snap people out of their thinking that Trump is going to save them.
Trump is going to do what he did last time: run as a 1990s era Democrat. He's gonna take the needle that the left has been bulldozing in their direction for 30 years, and he's gonna put his pinky finger on it and slow down the rate of acceleration ever so much and the left is going to be absolutely giddy that they can spend the next four years throwing a mock tantrum while they sit back and watch all their wildest fantasies come true under his administration,
again.
Conservatives and Libertarians don't lose because they don't capitulate - capitulating and giving up on what you ostensibly want is in fact the dictionary definition of losing. If they got into a similar position where they're calling the shots and had to give up on one thing to get two, the same way the left has done for my entire life, then you'd have a point.
Until then... well, we'll just have to eat the bugs until you lot realize how many people there are out there who actually do have the balls to push like that, and stop ignoring them for the promise of a cheeto flavored bone thrown in your direction to keep your mind off how much you're losing.
