so: US voting question. How am I, a new voter and very much left wing, supposed to think about the stupid closed primary system?
Let's "imagine" that I'm far-enough-left that I wouldn't ever consider being a member of the Democratic party, which seems to be roughly in line with Canada's conservative party, honestly (at least before Poilievre). In Canada I'd have serious political parties running candidates that somewhat represent my views; here I really don't (unfortunately Canada's system very much does NOT represent expats usefully at all, which is another post entirely). Obviously in the upcoming election I will probably vote for every Democrat down the ticket, unless there's an independent that's better and might actually win some local race. But join the party? nope. Fuck that. And I'm definitely not the only one.
So. Is it ethical or unethical to temporarily affiliate to the Democratic party, vote in the primary, and then un-affiliate, in the hopes that they might actually run a progressive candidate despite everything? To me that just seems fucking nuts, to the point of subverting the process. No Canadian would ever do this in Canada, as far as I'm aware! It also doesn't seem to move the needle appreciably on the "stop the Republicans from winning fucking everything again" scale and might even be counterproductive to such efforts. But it seems to be common practice, at least amongst pragmatic leftist people here. Heck, the person at the "check your voting status" booth at a local MLK Day event *told* me that I should consider doing this.
If I'm going to vote strategically in a primary I'm totally unattached to, shouldn't I instead vote in the Republican primary, to try to get them to run someone unelectable? Surely that's better than saying which fucking centrist I love the mostest. Now, I've never heard anyone suggest this seriously and I just don't know why, since it seems very similar to the strategy above. And it DOES seem to be the most direct way to vote for not-the-Republicans-winning-everything.
Help a new-ish dual citizen out here. What am I missing.

















