Are you ready to be manipulated? Are you ready for a dose of good old fashioned emotional blackmail?

If you’re a conservative who’s not a fan of the left-wing extremists in the Democratic Party or the fiscally irresponsible racially divisive Trump-led GOP get ready to receive pressure from all sides.

Most conservatives will tell you that a vote for anyone other than Donald Trump (such as Independent Congressman Justin Amash) will hand the country over to left-wing extremists.

Similarly, many anti-Trumpers like Tom Nichols, don’t want you to back someone like Amash because it will re-elect Trump, “..don’t let anyone – left or right – sell you on a 3rd party run against Trump in 2020. That only helps Trump. “

Whether its Amash or any other conservative Independent who appeals to you, you can expect pressure to pick between the lesser of two evils instead.

They’ll do this by trying to persuade you of absurdities. The most absurd idea is that you are responsible for delivering your vote, the politicians aren’t responsible for winning it. If the Democrats win with less than a Majority, Trump’s propagandists will not blame the fact that they fell into lockstep in renominating a historically unpopular liar whose lack of ethics, and racial divisiveness alienated the country. Instead, they’ll blame Independent voters who backed another candidate over the GOP’s anointed choice. Failing that, they’ll attack the candidate as if he or she were the pied piper of Hamlin.

Similarly, if Trump wins because the Democrats nominate a candidate who can’ t bring themselves to say third-trimester abortions are wrong, favor gun confiscation, and support radical “Medicare for All” plans that will effectively end private insurance, it will be the fault of Independents who wouldn’t vote for their horrible nominee.

Major party politicos love to blame Independent and Third-Party campaigns for their troubles because it serves a dual purpose. First, it allows campaign insiders and party bosses who blew elections to escape blame. Second, it serves to serve as an argument to discourage Independent voting.

Thus, we can understand Democrats who blame Jill Stein and Gary Johnson for their 2016 loss rather than Hillary Clinton running a Presidential campaign that included multiple stops on Broadway but avoided going to Wisconsin. It’s also why Republicans will blame their 1992 loss on Ross Perot despite abundant evidence that Perot wasn’t to blame for Bush’s loss.

It’s an insidious game both parties play that fundamentally flips our Republic on its head. In the next few blog posts, I’ll be talking about how to defeat this binary view of politics.