The US Revolution was justified as being in protest against taxes, but taxes raised to pay for the Seven Years War which (chronologically, if not causally) began with George Washington ambushing French troops and resulted in colonists gaining significant territory. One of the nowadays less romanticised causes of the revolution itself was the block on westward expansion of the colonies by the British government too, incidentally.

Your outline there also ignores the many wars and atrocities that describe the westward expansion of the USA (and beyond, the Philippines for example) as it actually did happen too, they very much did not begin their imperialism with the start of the cold war.

That’s fine, there are a great deal of more impactful and meaningful things that people can do instead of voting. My point is that if someone’s sole contribution is voting, they haven’t actually done anything.

The ratchet effect works because vast swathes of people can’t perceive of any way to affect change beyond voting, thus creating a single (recurring) major choke point for going through the ‘correct’ channels.

If all you do is vote, you can’t complain.