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The primaries are the equiivalent of ranked choice voting. The idea is that each party, so each side of the political spectrum, brings out their "best" candidates and the populace votes on who best represents them. The winners of that move on to the general.
It isn't quite the same but it also isn't THAT far off the reality of how the votes turn out when the counting is done. And, theoretically, it encourages party platforms that incorporate the more popular parts of each popular candidate's platforms. And that... sometimes happens.
You have absolutely no idea how ranked choice or primaries work.
Let's suppose the Democrat primary has two progressives and one neolib. The progressives get 28% and 32% of the vote...a total of 60% of the vote. The one neolib gets 40%.
Progressive policies are more popular, but neolib won.
This is the curse of FPTP.
Ranked choice would say that those 60% prefer one or the other progressive with the neolib being last. The result is theore popular progressive won, and more importantly, a progressive won.
One thing I will point out as an Aussie who knows the system well…here, the preference choice is given to the voter, not the party unless the voter is happy with that. We can choose to vote the whole ticket or just vote 1 and let that party delegate our preferences.
I always mark the whole ticket. Typically, for me it’s #1 Green, then a raft of independents dependent on their standing, Labor usually third last then One Nation and the Coalition last. Parties do negotiate here about who they’ll preference and that can come down to electorate as well. Generally however, Greens will preference Labor and ON et al will preference the Liberals. Where a preference goes however is at the discretion of the voter unless they just vote 1 for their preferred party.
It sounds like the progressives just need to coalesce around one candidate in the primary then, like the neolibs have done, and then they would win.
Which is what we see happen under parliamentary systems when the shit hits the fan.
The key is to explore that space while there is time rather than wait until it is a zero sum game with a REAL mediocre candidate
It sounds like you're opposed to having more choice in who represents you.
As opposed to ranked choice where no candidate gets a plurality, both progressives get eliminated, and the second choice "neolib" votes win? Because "the neolib" is also getting a fair amount of moderate and even conservative votes.
At which point "the neolib" flips everyone off and wins? As opposed to needs to convince the two progressives to support them in exchange for platform concessions?
Or we can just simplify your post to "under this system, people will vote the way I want them to" and leave it at that?