altho i repeatedly give the thumbs down to certain spam it continues to find its way into my inbox. is there a more effective way to block crap?

Mail > Preferences > Junk Mail Tab > When junk mail arrives: Choose either move it to the junk mailbox or Perform customer actions (whichever you choose). This is all you can do in the Mac Mail to sort your junk out at the application level. You will want to check with your Email Service Provider (i.e. yahoo, aol, hotmail, etc.) to determine what anti-spam/junk settings you can set on your account at the server level.

Protip: If you use yahoo or hotmail you will receive junk mail until the day you die. Switch to iCloud email 😝)

go to mail preferences , junk mail,when junk mail arrives, tick move it to junk mailbox.