system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I’m not happy with the political party I mostly support. I shouldn’t donate a dime to anyone until I am happier.

I am approaching this from a non-political perspective and I feel like this could be party agnostic, but I’m really not happy with the political party I have supported in the past. They are awful and disappoint me at every turn. Every election, they induce a “most important election of our lives” narrative, but don’t really deliver when in power IMHO.

I am a member of multiple minority groups (intersectionality is a thing), and I feel very much taken advantage of. I have advanced degrees in public policy and law, so I have an understanding of how US government and politics works. Voting for the current ecosystem of the other party is not an option.

I am starting to get fundraising emails, invitations, etc as 2022 starts to ramp. I feel that there is no good reason to donate my money to candidates or political party. The amount I am able to donate does not get me “access” to a candidate, just more spam emails and calls. 

My friends believe that this is still important to donate. CMV: Why should I still donate to this machine?

EDIT: Its probably germane that I am in the United States and I live in DC where I have NO direct representation in federal elections.
gpt
If you wait until the general election to support candidates, you are too late to make any real change to your party.  Changes to the party happen during the _primaries_, where multiple candidates within the party compete for the main nomination.  _This_ is where new ideas are introduced and the party moves further left/right based on who wins the primary.  

Case in point, AOC unseated Joe Crowley - a 10 year veteran of Congress - in the Democratic primary, pushing that seat _much_ further left.  A Democrat was always going to win that seat, but real change was made there because Democrats made their voice heard when it _really_ mattered.  Similarly, Trump came out of nowhere to win the 2016 Republican POTUS primary, fundamentally changing the GOP.

If you support your candidates _then_, you can actually influence things in a meaningful way.  So you 100% should donate time and money to candidates - you just need to do it _earlier_.