You say we're in a 2-party system, but the electorate has left them both, because they are owned by the same large corporate donors.
"It's a numbers game. So, either you recognize who your opponent is, work to beat the living shit out of that opponent and make changes while you're in a position to, or you get left behind and whine about it."
I recognize who my opponent is, it's the donors/owners of both major parties. And it's well past time that everyone else recognizes this too. The numbers game supports my argument, not yours, voters who refuse to affiliate are by far larger in numbers than those that belong to either party.
The ideological struggle you speak of is mostly contrived by the powers that be, so we don't notice the Acme, Inc. armored truck being loaded up with all the money of the Treasury, to be shipped offshore to tax havens for the wealthy. We are up against an existential crisis as a species, climate change, are besieged by terrorists who are blowback to the policies of U.S. military "adventurism" and regime change that are done by both parties, globalization and the trade policies that enable it are eroding opportunities for good secure jobs (also pushed by both parties), on and on. I define our ideological struggle differently than you.
Finally, there's a great deal of general harm (your term) that is caused by corporate Democrats, who are using the people-first cred our party cultivated over long years of standing up for the little guy, to pass corporate agendas the people would more fiercely resist if they were being pushed by Republicans.
There are certainly real left-right divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, the far more urgent problems (climate change, endless wars, poverty, exploitation of desperate labor pools, mass incarceration and the police state, an out-of-control financial industry, many others) largely transcend these divisions. The presumptive party nominee is on the wrong side of every one of these issues, as is the party leadership. At this point our party has pretty much succumbed to corporate capture.
Can it be fixed internally, in-party? I certainly hope so. Many of us have watched this primary and seen what our party really stands for, and we're not seeing any sign of reform, the party has instead doubled-down on corporate supremacy. Defining our mission as simply opposing Republicans enables this.
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