People talk about the merits of ranked choice voting. That concept might be worth a try if indeed one had several candidates they could enthusiastically support and were simply concerned with choosing which one to settle on. That situation couldn’t be more opposite from the truly rank voting options our de facto and exclusionary two-party system presently forces upon us.

Aiming to recapture the White House, the Republicans ran a staggering field of 17. The Democrats ran 6. Between the two, only three candidates remain in striking distance of the Oval Office. Two of them have the historic standing of being tied for the most disliked general election nominee in the past 10 presidential cycles, while the one with the highest favorability based on trustworthiness is the one least likely to pass the final hurdle to the general election.

If all goes as most pundits predict, most voters will have the choice of voting for someone revolting or somewhat less revolting, having no choice one can wholeheartedly support but rather only choosing the one deemed least offensive.

However one judges his tenure, Obama remains the only president since Eisenhower to gain reelection by a majority vote. This presidential election, given whom we may be stuck with for his replacement, the majority of voters might just stay home. Might, maybe, possibly. Punditry is now anybody’s guess. Who can say for sure how this wildly unprecedented political seesaw will ultimately play out?

More and more, this national election has a definite deja vu feel about it. Paul LePage totally blindsided the Republican establishment. Maine’s Democrats ran Libby Mitchell, their heir apparent. Eliot Cutler, an Independent who would have won as a Democrat, refused to bow out and nearly triumphed.

Some still say, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” If that be true, then our next president may end up having a strong resemblance to our sitting governor, though sporting a yellow comb-over.

Totally without conviction, the Republican establishment is nevertheless putting forth the candidate they openly denounced throughout the elimination process. Trump and those who thought themselves in control of their party couldn’t have been more at odds. In the end, Trump has prevailed by endlessly calling out his adopted party, openly shaming its political bankruptcy while at the same time unashamedly becoming its most overt embarrassment. The more the establishment combated him the greater a champion he became in the eyes of those wanting a populist Republican message even more offensive and divisive than that of its existing branding. Chickens do come home to roost.

The Democrats face their own ideological crossroads heading towards the finish line in a convention race strewn with insider advantages for the establishment’s predetermined choice for victor, and obstacles at every turn for the dark horse long shot that still persists in inspiring an invigorated democratic idealism. The DNC continues to double down on Hillary Clinton against all that will beleaguer her chances in the general election. It still believes the best game plan is to run someone anathema to all conservatives and emblematic of what nearly half of its own party thinks is wrong with the status quo.

Seeing the GOP cave to pursuing the lowest road to victory, the DNC still chooses to risk defeat than bend to the will of those critical of its oligarchical aligned indifference to a clarion call for progressive change.

Unable to convincingly co-opt Sanders’s or Trump’s populist appeal, or clearly present a broadly compelling campaign of her own, Hillary’s desperate rhetoric increasingly sounds as if lifted from Sarah Palin’s “lipsticked pit bull” playbook. Pitch perfect, her recently touted “take-down” of Trump on foreign policy credentials was pure Trumpian food-fight mudslinging statesmanship. Goodbye high road. Hello reciprocal bloodletting.

Hillary masterfully attacks Trump’s erratic and irresponsible posturing while deftly sidestepping how her own positions stand against previous decisions. She rolls the electoral dice confident that Trump’s blatant lack of national security experience is an unquestionable liability while bragging of the size of her own proven contentious resume. Trouble is, America today wants change even more than security, and trusts anti-Beltway solutions more than insider expertise. It watches reality TV far, far more than C-SPAN.

If Sanders’s social-democrat groundswell fails to convince the Democratic Convention to dump Hillary, for the sake of the party’s soul, or its generational fidelity, or a more likely victory over Trump, the DNC risks joining the GOP in facing a lasting ideological schism.

Enabling a system that essentially limits presidential selection to one of two politically tone-deaf parties that remain uncompromising in their opposition to each other hasn’t served us all that well recently. Ranked choice requires at least a third viable alternative. Those that cry “spoiler” might consider that our current electoral process is already seriously spoiled. To save what remains of participatory democracy we need to break the cycle of voting against someone rather than for someone, voting out of orchestrated fear and hatred or the accepted rationalization that the democratic process must always be compromised.

The only truly wrong vote is the one cast for someone you can’t actually believe in.

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Gary Anderson lives in Bath.