The fact is that choices are limited. Things like ranked choice voting might start to change that. Maybe we could see other major parties at some point. The fact that we have only two main parties is a product of your (and most people's) sort of game theory mindset - that you have to oppose the other side even if your choice isn't great.
Or of a winner-take-all electoral system? I can’t say that the systems I’ve seen which have you vote for an amorphous entity instead of a tangible and somewhat accessible person are better in every sense, exactly, but I think of the sort of environment which would develop the word bipartisan to mean universally supported and can’t shake off an overwhelming feeling of stupid.
Who's "we"? I don't think a single Black American would agree with your statement.
You don't have to vote either Republican or Democrat. Third-parties, write-ins, and simply abstaining in protest are all perfectly valid alternatives which would get you out of that 50%. I more-or-less agree with the GP here: If you vote for a candidate knowing that they will use the power you give them in ways which are harmful to others, you're contributing to the problem. That's true even in FPTP voting systems where the winner will almost certainly have an (R) or (D) next to their name no matter what you do. Overall turnout (voter engagement) and the percentage that actually voted for the winning candidate both matter even if they don't change the official result of the election.
"If you vote for a candidate knowing that they will use the power you give them in ways which are harmful to others, you're contributing to the problem."
Can you name any candidate that wouldn't harm any group? It seems they all have ideas about what laws would make things better, and those laws tend to involve control of people's actions or inactions.
No, I can't. That's the problem with voting for representatives or officials—you inevitably end up voting for a politician. The candidate pool is made up of people who see force as a reasonable means for solving problems, real or imagined; those who don't see it that way have more productive things to do than run for political office in a system they consider immoral. Occasionally you get an idealist who thinks they can change the system from within, but it's too well entrenched—the corruption ends up infecting them instead.
If you vote one way, you don’t care all that much about key issues that matter to me. I do. It’s relevant to my life. It doesn’t matter what you say. The truth is you don’t care as much as I do.
I don’t have to oppose anything. That’s you projecting. Knowing who is opposing me is not opposing them. It’s just knowing the landscape. I’m quite comfortable not opposing someone even if they oppose me, but I do insist on knowing they oppose me.