Okay, by now, we seem to have a pretty-clear picture of what "umpteen billion dollars of Spending on Mainstream Media™" will actually buy us:

(According to the "version of reality(sic)" that it has so-expensively purchased ...) It is simply this: "Yes, indeed. An 'election,' reduced to 'a Reality TV show.'"

By the simple fallacy of "begging the question" ... a fundamental tactic very well-known in the storybook of "crowd psychology" ... this tactic (purchased at the expense of many billions of dollars ...) very simply wishes to create "a tempest in a teapot."

Above all else(!!), it wishes to focus your attention upon two, and only two, of the four candidates that you will see on this year's US Presidential ballot ...

... as though "there were 'only two.'"

Through the simple expedient of making "one-of-two candidates" more-revulsive than the other "of two," these billions of dollars are being spent to ... one way or the other ... cause voters to somehow forget that there are: "four names."

Now, you can be absolutely certain that the American Propaganda Ministry the Media will never "say otherwise." Their message has been entirely purchased by "the Two-Party System, Inc.," and of course they know how to "satisfy an Advertiser."

... but maybe, as "as an actual US voter, and citizen," you should finally begin to "think outside the box."

On Election Day, there will be four names in front of you. And, at that precious moment, the choice is yours.

Just remember that.

I think you expect too much of an average American voter who is used to Coke-vs-Pepsi propositions, but the root of the issue is the Electoral College and our entrenched system of "majority rule." Since a candidate needs a majority of EC votes instead of a simple plurality, and cases where any single candidate fails to meet that test go to the House, the composition of the House is going to matter. And there in the case of a tie or failure to reach 270, it would be decided on a majority, again favoring a two-party system.

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system#Causes

Old American voters (namely, the Baby Boomers) are still accustomed to "Coke vs. Pepsi" propositions, and are easily taken-in by campaigns precisely like the one that The Two-Party System, Inc. has waged. They historically have voted for colors (Red™ or Blue™) instead of candidates, and they like to vote with the crowd: voting for whomever they had been told "was going to win."

But, actually, Boomers aren't the majority vote anymore, and the new majority voters are concentrated in States with dense population centers and therefore large numbers of Electors.

TPS, Inc. has taken an enormously risky strategy because, if you but notice, they never treated the voter as someone who has a decision to make. They've never said anything (realistic) about what they or the parties they supposedly represent would actually do once handed Power for another two / four / six years. I suppose that the audience they're talking to is just presumed to be so jaded as not to expect that anything will do anything other than what they have been richly paid to do.

But there is actually nothing to prevent people from simply rejecting being treated in this way. Next Tuesday, it is entirely possible that President-Elect Johnson, say, will find that he has an easy majority of electoral votes, and that "conventional political thinkers" are speechless.