Decide who you’re going to vote for years ahead of time.

Congratulations! No politician cares what you think about any issue. You have removed your thoughts, desires, interests from the decision-making apparatus of democracy. You are, for all practical purposes, a non-voter.

“But I can still vote in primary elections!” Under ordinary circumstances, reasonable rebuttals might include:

• Primary platforms are even more fictitious than general-election platforms;
• Removing yourself from the general is still a loss; you’re not completely disenfranchised but you’re still worse off than you would otherwise be.

For the next four years though, the response will more often be “not if you’re a Democrat!” Glib, yes, but it gets at an important truth: primary elections aren’t really supposed to be proper, fair, democratic elections. They’re a party-internal mechanism to pick a candidate. They are not “the real election”.

Policy is set by undecided voters (and among them, the median voter). The undecided voter is often maligned as an indecisive, ignorant creature who begins to pay attention to the election on Monday evening, likely by considering which candidate would be better to have a beer with. (“I’m drinking Modelo. Do you think Kamala drinks Modelo? Probably not. I’ll vote for Trump.”) But: rational voters want to be the median voter. The median voter has power. The median voter sets policy.

Since functioning democracies are not single-issue polities, you too can be a median voter! (Or at least work your way in that direction.) Here’s how. First, look at the issues you care about most. If you’re like most self-disenfranchised voters, you’ll notice that almost all of these issues point in the same direction: you either consistently agree with the stereotypical Democrat stance or Republican stance. (No points for thinking some third party is also worthy: they’re electorally irrelevant at the national level and you know it. Not just because of the electoral college, either.)

The reason you’re a disenfranchised voter, far from the median, is that all these issues you care about point in the same direction. So look at the issues where you go against the local grain, so to speak. The issues where you have to admit that the “other” party has it right. Care about them more. Care about them until you’re unclear on which party is, overall, better. And then, on election day, look at all the policies you care about, and make a difficult decision. Congratulations, you now have a vote and a say!

Of course you can try to do this with a single issue (as Scott Alexander discusses—paywalled, sorry), but at the very least it’s much harder to manage, psychologically. I recommend the multi-issue formulation.

P.S. it also helps to avoid the common mistake of changing your mind on issue X so as to better align with your political compatriots. They don’t have to be right about everything, and you’re not made impure by disagreeing with them from time to time.