In general, you put both the McDonald's and Wendy's close together in the best location on Main Street so that they can each get a good shot at half the business. Else one of those two is out at one end or the other of Main Street and gets only about 1/4th business.

Much the same for political parties: They look like there's not much difference. Some of the Dems are a bit left of Mao, and some of the Repubs are a bit to the right of Genghis Khan, still the actual parties want to look close to the center.

But where is the 'center'? And what issues are hot in the center? That depends a lot on the voting citizens and what the media thinks they can get away with pushing.

I contend that with better informed citizens, we would have had political debates on a much higher level, have just avoided The Great Recession because we never would have done something as dumb as the bubble blowing, and done much better on addressing the issues in foreign policy that got us to throw away a few trillion dollars, etc.

Clinton was paying off the national debt; without the costs of the wars and with the taxes from full employment instead of the unemployment from The Great Recession, we could have had the debt paid off by now or nearly so. Why would it be good to pay off the debt? Because then the US Treasury is not borrowing so much money and, then, interest rates are lower for the rest of us and, in effect, our economy has more 'seed corn', investment capital for growth.

For all those years since Clinton, we could have the economy charging ahead, without inflation, so fast that companies would be recruiting in the poor areas, providing buses from the poor areas to the offices, paid training in the offices, etc. It was happening in the 1960s.

Let's take one issue: Abortion. I claim that in reality, in practice, no matter what you believe about abortion, good, bad, or indifferent, actually there's no real issue. Why? Because Roe v Wade was decided about 40 years ago, and there's no chance it will be changed. When we are well on the way to getting 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the states ready to change Roe v Wade, abortion can be an issue again.

In the meanwhile, what is abortion in politics? Sure, a way to get some people all wound up over something that's not going to change. Why? Because some Repubs feel strongly that abortion is really bad and want to hear that some politician is 'against it'. Because a lot of Dems believe that someday they might need an abortion and want that option open to them so want to hear some politician is 'for it'. Either way, Roe v Wade's not going to be changed. So, with better informed voters, just informed enough to realize that Roe v Wade is 40 years old and a constitutional amendment takes the 2/3rds, 2/3rds, and 3/4ths, we could just quit talking about abortion and move on to, say, how to get the economy going and how to say out of absurd foreign adventures.

In our democracy, the voters get the government they deserve. Better informed voters stand to get better government. If the voters get smarter, then the two seemingly dumb-dumb parties will keep up with the voters.