electoralism

It's pretty simple, if your vote is for a 'lesser evil' that is a negative choice proposition, hardly worthy of the word 'choice' or 'democracy'. Two bad choices are still two bad choices, even if one is marketed as slightly less bad. The entire Dem strategy for like decades now has been this prisoners dilemma proposition. They never provide federal protection enshrined in law because that would take away the leverage of this strategy. The only way to break out of this pattern is to really threaten it directly by not acquiescing to it like good little liberals. That is why you have cognitive dissonance over this topic. The social pressure of 'lesser evil' is so deeply embedded in the liberal worldview that any questioning of it is adjacent to being a terrible right-winger.

The cultural war divide benefits Dems, so they do everything to perpetuate it instead of reconciling it. You need to comprehend this to have a realistic understanding of US political economy.