It's only a race to the middle in the short term. In the long term, you tend to get two parties as a defense against vote splitting.....that's where the polari

It's only a race to the middle in the short term. In the long term, you tend to get two parties as a defense against vote splitting.....that's where the polarization comes from. The collusion causes it. That's not to say that collusion always causes polarization, but this particular type does for very direct mathematical reasons. (see Duverger's Law) Proportional representation is not a great solution, in my opinion, since it actually assumes parties rather than making them unneeded. That's not to say there won't be collusion under a different system -- there will and that's ok...but there won't be a particular type of collusion whereby the Nash Equilibrium is two diametrically opposed camps. The main point, though, is that the rules are important. People cooperate better if the rules reward cooperative behavior.