Staying home, or voting 3rd Party, is effectively the same as giving 1/2 of a vote to the actual opposition. Most people who do this are, IMHO, miffed about candidate X not being pure enough. That is the problem that we conservatives/Republicans have - we are, as a group, so idealistic and individualistic that when someone doesn’t agree with us, we go it alone. The problem with that is that this is how you lose elections. The Dems, for all of their faults (and they are legion), are at least party loyalists. They fall in line and vote for the party nominee (with, of course, a few exceptions - which are notable because they are rare). So, the collectivists win more elections because they are, well, collectivists.
So tyranny is creeping closer, mainly because a bunch of lone wolves don’t understand that (as a very wise man - Franklin - said): “Either we all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately.” The tyranny isn’t coming from our side’s actions, it is from our side’s INaction in seriously fighting the collectivists.
I know these people, I’ve studied them for my whole life.
My paternal grandfather left Russia in 1923, right after the Reds won. They took everything that his father owned, and effectively made his entire family serfs for the Communist lords. Once he met Kerensky, who had taken power after the Czar left. Kerensky had (naively) hoped for a democratic resolution of Russia’s problems, and didn’t crack down on or eliminate the clearly aggressive and totalitarian Reds...so he and all of Russia lost, from his weakness. We are repeating that mistake, and Grandpa is probably spinning in his grave.
Oh, I forgot to mention: my grandfather nearly spit in Kerensky’s face, and probably would have beaten him if there weren’t so many police in attendance (because look at how Trotsky ended up for opposing the Soviet powers that be). Kerensky’s inaction and cowardice had cost my grandfather his family. He never saw his parents again, and only saw a few siblings in 1969, 46 years later. He wept at how miserable their lives were, and also about finding out that his father had been beaten to death by the NKVD for the “crime” of renting out 3/4 of his home in order to put food on the table (as a 74-year-old with cancer, he couldn’t exactly go out an work).
So I despise these collectivists with every fiber of my existence. I see what is coming if (or, more realistically, when) they regain the Presidency - and it chills me to the bone. Our way of life will be extinguished, with the only question being whether we will fight for our nation and our progeny’s right to be free, or meekly submit.