I agree with what you're saying, but it strikes me (& this is particularly poignant on THIS site), that this discussion is somewhat equivalent to the "blub" paradox (aka, how do you explain the power of lisp macro's to someone who grew up only with c & Java).
Americans are THAT brainwashed into thinking they really have a real choice at the ballot box, when in reality all choices that matter were weeded out long long before in the backroom selection process...
Counterpoint: folks not from America create a 2d projection of our government where on the whole Americans are very aligned and where (usually Europeans) are not and conclude that US parties are the same while their parties are very different.
Meanwhile I can't tell the difference between any of the (just picking one) UK parties. From an outsider perspective their government seems exactly the same no matter who is elected. But I don't conclude that the Brits are brainwashed and instead that I would have to be there to actually understand just how different they are.
We're at a point in the US where your political party is a dating dealbreaker for 60% of Americans and 85% of Americans only date within their own party. This isn't a small group of heavily politically involved with strong opinions, this is everyday people recognizing what are extremely different and fundamentally incompatible world views.
We're only 6 months in and I would hope the world can really feel the difference when a conservative government took power. I would be shocked if anyone couldn't tell the difference between our government pre and post january.
Rebuttal to your counterpoint: I've lived in the US for 25 years, so I'm not unaware of the "supposed differences".
What were saying is that these "supposed differences" are mostly over inconsequential things, designed to mobilise the masses into 1 camp or another, all while LEAVING THE MAJOR ISSUES untouched.
It doesn't matter if team red or team blue is in charge, immigrants get scapegoated and caged (happened under Obama & Biden).Just that team red takes greater visceral delight.
It doesn't matter if team red/blue is in power, the HOLOCAUST is armed, funded & covered for.
It doesn't matter if it's team red or blue, the military budget keeps going up, and the almost pyschopathic need to keep dumping military bases into other peoples backyards, the need to freeze conflicts into eternal points of instability (to then be exploited in the future), the need to keep poking at other people's pressure points to instigate war, the need to continuously "regime change" any sovereign country you like (all the while bemoaning "foreign interference" in your own elections... irony wants its ball back)
And failing all of that, the need to create/arm/fund terrorist groups of any stripe or persuasion to get what you want done. Be they right-wing death squads in Central America, to neo Nazis in Europe, to Daeesh in Syria/Iraq (and we can all drop the pretence now that CNN & the state dept all rushed in to validate the Daesh head honcho in Syria)
Etc, etc, boringly etc.
All of these things did happen, are happening, and will continue to happen - irrespective of team red or blue.
And irrespective of whether the bulk of the American population actually wants these things or not.
But yes, I'll grant you, voting team red or blue will impact the eternal question of who gets to urinate in which public bathroom.
Americans are THAT brainwashed into thinking they really have a real choice at the ballot box, when in reality all choices that matter were weeded out long long before in the backroom selection process...