Your vote outside of the two-party system is effectively the same as a non-vote. That is the disconnect. No one is looking at third party votes and seeing anything of substance. It will always look like a misunderstanding of the system.

The Democrats spend money slandering 3rd parties and attempting to remove them from ballots. That's a material impact on the election, even if a small one, it proves that they are threatened by them.

The reductionism is the belief that vote == vote. It does not,

Care to elaborate?

If you want change, which you should, you should also understand the limits of the system in place. To not do so is to allow it to continue on its path.

Did I say I vote for change? I said its about sending a message. Change doesn't happen at a ballot box in the capitalist system. A Maoist will tell you change flows from the barrel of a gun. Marxist-Leninists will tell you change comes from rising class consciousness. Neither would tell you it comes from voting.

The media will have to ask, where did the votes go? They will want to mine that question for content. Jill Stine, she's a known quantity. "Who is Claudia De La Cruz?", "Who are the PSL?" are eventually questions they will have to ask. This contradiction only generates more attention to 3rd parties. The more attention they have, the more eyes see them. The more eyes see them, the more people are exposed to alternatives. Which only results in more than zero percent of those eyes pealing away from the two parties.

PSLs goal isn't electoral victory. Its clear though they understand that the election process, as a whole process, is driven by spectacle, and it will pull you in front of media if you are becoming too much of a threat within that system. This only exposes people to PSL and their movement.

This is an incremental process, a small part of a longer strategy of engagement and activism.