politics

Unfortunately, our two party system has resulted in the current good cop/bad cop dynamic for many years. Since the Supremes decided that money is free speech and corporations are people, regular voters have lost a massive amount of influence.

Your ideals are good, but look around, you're living in a political fantasy, not reality. None of this is secret, it is now done right out in the open.

1. Major parties switch leadership roles every few years, but each party requires the other to make their own corporate donors happy. BoTh PaRtIeS use the other to pass law that is unpopular with their own voter base, resulting in more donations for all concerned. Except the voter base, of course (a recurring theme).
2. Are you a poor businessman, or perhaps just greedy? Politics is the third easiest path to significant wealth in the USA. Many not only get rich, their entire family enjoys truly ridiculous pay and benefits for those demanding government jobs, like being the ambassador to Bermuda. The more you look, the more examples you can find of entire families just happening to all become rich. The number one easiest path to wealth is inheritance, no. 2 is prosperity gospel preacher. Didn't even mention insider trading, I could go on and on blah blah blah.
3. If desired, the parties will just "switch" their platform, this is "the old switcheroo". Trump has done this with "states rights" for example. They don't even have respect for their very own party members, whatever, none of this matters.
4. Also, did you ever wonder why being in politics virtually guarantees the "New York Times Best Seller" status? They don't even have to write it to become a millionaire, they just pay some poor hump a few grand to figure it out. And, the best part, guess who buys those many thousands of books? Why, their very own party members pay for them via their campaign contributions! And the very bester part? They just dump the crappy books in a landfill. The very bestest of all super parts? Their constituency pay for the dumpsters dumping the books that they have already paid for.
5. I have been reading about the Fed recently, and good lord. They are not even the government, they are bankers who profit from their banking and they can "raise taxes" immediately for every US citizen by manipulating the interest rate, absolutely zero democracy involved. So, the only way to limit the fantastic power of banks (government) is owned and operated by... the banks? That's like putting the police in charge of policing the police, who is dumb enough to do that? I feel kinda weird now.
6. Our Supreme Court is now openly and publicly accepting bribes. They don't run for election and have lifetime appointments... and for that matter, at least two billionaires shared the stage with Trump after their "election victory", and then, the worst hoarder on planet Earth was provided with a government appointment and then he immediately began blatantly breaking the law

... and so much more

In my opinion, you need to face that voting is absolutely no solution and that it is for entertainment purposes only, like answering a poll or survey. I don't know the solution, I only know that voting isn't it.

You had a longer answer; I was just getting some real Ken Bone energy there...

There are always those lame party hacks that have to try to tell me that I MUST join a team. No I dont, and I won't.

I ALWAYS vote, and it's always for the lesser of two evils. I've NEVER voted for a candidate I liked much. It's just that these days, one of the evils is beyond proverbial, and is truly Evil.

But that doesn't make me a Democrat, and registering as a Democrat won't change a thing, except give them some sort of bragging rights that they don't deserve.

Nope, as long as there is a HUGE swath of America out there that refuses to identify with either party, those parties WILL care, and they do, for the simple reason that NOBODY gets elected without us.

Pretty sure it means you get to vote in the primaries, aka the election to choose who's in the election

You don't have to vote for the party you're registered for.

This is coming from a non-American, but that's how I understand it

I think we're growing, too. A lot of people had been giving the Dems the benefit of the doubt, until they just folded up and let MAGA take everything right back, and didn't put up a fight at all. It was a disgusting, shameful performance, and all those MAGA appeasers need to go. There's a small handful that can stay, but the rest need to be replaced by new Democratic Warriors who will actually do their jobs, and fight for us.