Consider the presidential election. A simple binary choice was presented to the electorate; the Democrat candidate versus the Republican candidate. There were no other possible results. It was extremely clear to anyone who wasn’t already MAGA levels of devoted to the Republicans, that the Republican candidate would do far worse things than the Democrat candidate, thus there were functionally only two actions you could take: vote for the democrat candidate or vote against the democrat candidate. Abstaining, voting third party, or otherwise not voting democrat had exactly the same result as directly voting for the republican candidate, namely increasing their odds of winning.

Neither candidate should have been standing, both parties should have had free, fair and open primaries, and the whole situation stank, but that was the situation when the polls opened, and voters needed to act accordingly. As I said, the republican propaganda team was in overdrive and successfully fooled a large enough portion of the electorate into thinking of the election as a referendum on the democrats, rather than a choice between democrat and republican, and got them to think along the lines you’ve outlined above. That was enough to shift the election in favour of the republicans, and leave us in the situation we’re in now.

The same dynamic played out all the way down the ticket, giving what is likely to be a catastrophic result for a vast number of people. The argument that it’s not the voters’ fault is disingenuous; no-one was holding gun to their heads when they voted. Yes, the amount of disinformation and propaganda they experienced was extreme, but that does not absolve anyone of their personal responsibility. The fact that neither party treated the electorate with any respect, likewise, does not absolve anyone of their responsibility, nor did it change the nature of the election. The trick was played on voters by the republicans, getting them to think, and say, that the democrats weren’t good enough without considering what the alternative was.

As you say, they want people fighting amongst themselves, and it would certainly be best to acknowledge that the election has passed, and the situation is as it stands. The republicans have a clean sweep of every branch of federal government and many state ones too, and are wasting no time in implementing their worst and more damaging policies as quickly and ruthlessly as they can. Now we have to work out how to protect the vulnerable, slow the oncoming tide of fascism and find a way to start bringing people back together again. The next major round of elections should be in two years, and present an opportunity to turn, or at least, slow the tide that threatens to wash away the USA. Between now and then a lot has to change, but it’s doable, even if the parties themselves do not, but it will take people looking past the obvious tricks and understanding that they usually, unfortunately, only have two options in an election, and now-a-days one is much, much worse than the other.

Half of the one option passes completely different legislature than the other half, so maybe get your delusions checked.