Nothing is anything when you manipulate a definition to exclude what you don't want to include.

Voting is a form of harm reduction, by reducing the damage done by a provably worse candidate. If you meant harm elimination, you're right, but perfect is the enemy of better

Harm reduction voting in 2016 would have prevented the stacking of the courts that led to roe v wade being reversed, along with the naked destruction of our civil rights. Harm reduction voting in 2024 would have prevented the war with Iran, and would have lessened the support that the USA had behind Israel in Gaza. Anybody who says the Democrats would have been just as bad are at best stupid, and at worst, intentionally trying to accelerate a chaotic situation into a worse one in the naive hope that their preferred ideology will come out on top. And any leftist should be politically aware enough to know how that ends up...

Harm reduction is the reduction of harm, ignoring whatever other niche definitions you want to pretend are more important to suit your absurd point right now, which voting generally accomplishes in a vaguely democratic system.

Okay, but that quote doesn't support the conclusion that engaging in harm-reduction via voting is instead a bad thing. In fact, it doesn't even argue that your vote doesn't matter. The only thing it suggests - and I can't even say "proves" here, as your own disclaimer brings the validity of this study's conclusions into question - is that mass voting doesn't result in policy change from the major parties.

Voting for the party that is going to bomb brown people, rather than the one that is going to bomb brown people, round up locals who look too brown, and de-legitimize LGBTQ+ peoples of all demographics, is harm reduction worth engaging in.

I eagerly await the total failure of capitalism as much as the next socialist, but I am not condemning local minorities just to win some form of imagined moral high ground.

I have had a read through that study, and I would consider the following points striking:

1. it is entirely US-centric. Extrapolation to the entire world from this study would be pretty fruitless — in the extreme example, Switzerland is a democracy that uses referenda more than most (any?) other country, and so any policy decided by one of these by necessity follows the will of the voters (though not necessarily their interests, of course).
2. it is focussed on a very specific period of time — between 1981 and 2002. What’s striking about that period is Reagan - Bush - Clinton - Bush – in general a rightward swing (3/4 republican, and Clinton was a ‘third way’ Democrat). Is it particularly surprising that these governments aligned with elite interests?

To give a counter example to this study: consider the exit to the gilded age. We have a period comparable to now, where political power was bought and sold; corruption reigned. However, the government of Teddy Roosevelt made a number of moves counter to corporate interests, breaking up monopolies, reserving vast swathes of national parks, legislation protecting food and drug adulteration (note: not an unequivocal fan of TR — I am not in favour of his gunboat diplomacy).

A more recent example: under the Biden administration, there was a significant uplift in antitrust efforts. Lina Khan was appointed to the FTC, and who knows what she could have accomplished given more time. In a UK-based example, we are (finally, thank fucking god) renationalising our public services. It is absurd to think this would have happened under the opposition.

TLDR: democratic socialism is possible; your study is a snapshot of conservative administrations in America and — no shit — they aligned with corporate interests.