In countless casual political conversations over the years, I have heard the principle of the “lesser of two evils” invoked, the quiet suggestion that voting is less an act of belief than a calculation of how much damage one is willing to tolerate. Alongside this logic is the familiar refrain that “both parties are the same.” Both frames are reductive and ultimately defeatist. They shrink democracy into a form of harm management rather than collective self-determination and condition citizens to expect disappointment as the price of participation.