That's a self-imposed problem. There were 22 choices for president on my ballot. Until people wake up and start looking at the other 20 parties the current system is what we get.
If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive... pretty sure Johnson would have won.
We must prove that something which may be more complex than our current system is still just as fair (or more fair).
For example rank voting. You rank the candidates when you vote. When counting, you count all the votes for each candidate. You eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes. Everyone who had that candidate as a first choice reallocates their votes to their second choice. Repeat until there's a winner.
Suddenly it's okay to vote for that third party, because through rank voting you can ensure that your third party vote does not end up propping up the candidate you like the least.
Why isn't it used today?
Does such a group exist?
You can either rank the vote manually or vote for a party and they get to pick how the vote is ranked between all the candidates.
Also lots of countries have preferential voting systems. Lots of people in AU don't vote for the major parties.
The US system is just crazy.