It's going to blow your mind when you find out there's a longstanding movement of people further to the left of Chomsky and Bernie

You're right that there is a significant difference between candidates this time. But just because one of the teams has made their offering even worse does not validate the overall setup. Trump's exceptional terribleness is just another indicator of just how broken our democracy has become, complete with the sizable amount of people continuing to rally behind him out of spite.

Although pragmatically I do find myself in the novel position of needing to support the status quo corporate authoritarian, as societal collapse is not conducive to freedom.

My comment was not about the candidates. or the parties. it was about what some people are willing to accept as "no lack of democracy".

OK let's revise the options: I'm going to amputate either your left arm or your right thumb. It's quite obvious that you should rather lose your right thumb. And I gave you the opportunity to make a choice. If you disagree that this is democracy, then you secretly want to lose your left arm. Definitely not a leftist.

Punching a dog or killing a dog is still hurting the dog.