I wouldn't call the Red vs. Blue contest in our national politics to be an illusion or a false choice, I consider it to be a distraction. What matters are the issues. ALL of the issues.
The United States uses First Past the Post elections as the base layer protocol of our democracy. Whichever side or candidate can get 50%+1 of the voters who cast a ballot wins it all. This dynamic quickly showed itself as a problem after the very first vote in Congress of a bill, which was Alexander Hamilton's Tariff Act of 1789. There were people in Congress who voted for it, who then started calling themselves "Federalists", and people who voted against it, who started calling themselves "Democratic Republicans". You can trace the evolution and dynamic nature of our entire election history by looking at how the political parties evolved over time.
The best way to deal with elections is not by a single issue deciding factor, but by looking across the spectrum of issues and deciding where WE stand on those issues. Then run a comparison with the candidates on the ballot or ballot measures, and see how they measure up to how we want the world to turn out. If a single issue can sway you towards a candidate who otherwise only matches your vision of the world by 40% or less, we really need to ask ourselves if sacrificing all of the other issues we care about are worth that one deciding factor.
I have found isidewith.com to be one of the best source of questions and comparisons that is out there. I wish the devs of the app were on Nostr.