Entirely agree. The people responsible for trump getting votes are the people voting for Trump.

Tactical voting is bullshit of the highest order and the undeniable sign of a fucked up political and voting system, not some sort of political astuteness.

If your voting system can't allow people to express their true choice, you should throw it away. Yes, that means the majority of voting systems around the world are bad and need to be changed. Getting people to recognise that this is even an issue in the first place is a huge battle.

And remember they need all 3 of presidency, house of representatives, and senate to pass pretty much anything

The odds of Democrats keeping the Senate seem dismal. So it sounds like we're giving the party license to do nothing for another two years

I've thought about that recently.

In Germany, the 2 historically biggest parties were SPD (used to be liberal-democrat) and CDU (conservative) and they often were the ones tugging it out while the smaller parties were filling in as coalition partners for one or the other.

Over time, the SPD splintered into several semi-big offshoot parties (Linke, for example) while the CDU stayed as a whole. As a result, CDU is now commonly a favorite for getting most votes in an election.

Is that consistent with politics across the globe? And if, why do liberal or center parties tend to split up more than conservatives?

So vote for them regardless and then they will listen?