From
Wikipedia:
Quote:
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The median voter theory, also known as the median voter theorem and the median voter model, is a famous voting model positing that in a majority election, if voter policy preferences can be represented as a points along a single dimension, if all voters vote deterministically for the politician that commits to a policy position closest to their own preference, and if there are only two politicians, then if the politicians want to maximize their number of votes they should both commit to the policy position preferred by the median voter. This strategy is a Nash equilibrium. It results in voters being indifferent between candidates and casting their votes for either candidate with equal probability. Hence in expectation each politician receives half of the votes. If either candidate deviates to commit to a different policy position, the deviating candidate receives less than half the vote.
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In slightly plainer English, the median voter theory posits that in any winner-takes-all election between two politicians, the best political positions for both politicians to take is the median position. This way, the politicians can try and capture the maximum number of voters willing to vote for them and unwilling to vote for the other politician. This is why you often hear about how the Democratic presidential candidate will "run to the right" after the primary concludes, and vice-versa for the Republican candidate.
Our style of elections - plurality elections - are what cause the sort of 50-50 splits the OP is complaining about. There's nothing unusual, or even particularly wrong about that, given the nature of American-style politics.
Also, frankly, I hate the concept that politics is "destroying" the country and that we need to "come together." People have legitimately differing views on all manner of policy issues and simply sitting down together will not change this reality. For example, some people think affirmative action is an effective policy. Others would like to change it to focus on class, not race. Others would like to get rid of it altogether. How are these people supposed to just "get together?" The point of a "free marketplace of ideas," to quote Mills (IIRC), is to have a dialogue, force all ideas to be tested and tried publicly, and eventually make a decision. That's what politics is.
Now, obviously, our political system is not a perfectly efficient policy-ideas debating machine out of which the most battle-tested concepts emerge victorious. It's filled with inefficiencies and failures, but it isn't just us - it's any political system. There will be distortions and failures in the process but in the end it is far better to have dueling policies, ideologies, and concepts than some sort of undefinable fantasy world in which everyone sits around a table and "comes together."
Politics are rough. People disagree about things. There's no need for everyone to "come together."
/rant