The problem comes when you're weighing a protest vote/no-vote against milquetoast corporate centrism, and the outcome should that protest vote sway the election is that the Slavering Fascist Apocalypse-Makers sweep into power, turn any future elections into tightly-controlled farces, and then begin a sweeping range of internal and external pogroms. Voting for the corporate centrists sucks, but from a standpoint of harm reduction it's the only viable choice. A bunch of people stayed home in 2024 on the logic that by doing so they'd send a message to the Democrats, and as a result America might lose its democracy entirely.

The protest vote logic 100% works when the opposing side isn't ready to kill you given half a chance, but the American right clearly is, and has been for the last decade, and now the most vulnerable are in the literal and metaphorical crosshairs. You could make an accelerationist argument, that what we can build back up from the wreckage of what's to come will be better for all (and it might well be!) but history tell us that's no guarantee -- and even then, you have to answer for those who won't live to see the better days to come, or who will suffer greatly against their will in the process.