A few-party system is just what happens with majority-rules voting, ordinary human preferences (a few hot issues much more important than free dogs, free public transportation, or a 4-day work week), and a large enough populace for the law of large numbers to matter. Candidates and voters both align around the hot issues, because candidates who do otherwise lose to voters rejecting them for the one thing they care the most about, and voters who do otherwise have zero influence on the topics they care most about (as opposed to the approximately zero influence a single vote has).
That's a problem in all voting systems (that the optimal strategy for candidates and for voters depends on your perceived knowledge of other voters -- you aren't incentivized to vote for the person who you think is actually best, and as a candidate you aren't incentivized to do what you think is best), ignoring some simplifications that sometimes arise in something simpler than a presidential election.
However, majority-rules voting is particularly bad at it, especially in a lot of real-world preference distributions. If you came out with a new party, magicked up a billion dollars in advertising, and thoroughly convinced the populace that you'd not screw much up and also make a 4-day work week a reality, you'd still likely lose. I might personally vote for you, but I'd bet a lot of money that you wouldn't stand a chance.
It's a little interesting that we have to vote for a single "president". An interesting byproduct is that _most_ people disagree about _most_ of the decisions (even in the same party), despite perhaps favoring them for one or two important reasons. If there were a neat way to divide up the power over education, abortion, ..., you could achieve a majority of people being happy about all of the major issues and maybe have a little more time to talk about some other (comparatively) minor ones.
That's a problem in all voting systems (that the optimal strategy for candidates and for voters depends on your perceived knowledge of other voters -- you aren't incentivized to vote for the person who you think is actually best, and as a candidate you aren't incentivized to do what you think is best), ignoring some simplifications that sometimes arise in something simpler than a presidential election.
However, majority-rules voting is particularly bad at it, especially in a lot of real-world preference distributions. If you came out with a new party, magicked up a billion dollars in advertising, and thoroughly convinced the populace that you'd not screw much up and also make a 4-day work week a reality, you'd still likely lose. I might personally vote for you, but I'd bet a lot of money that you wouldn't stand a chance.
It's a little interesting that we have to vote for a single "president". An interesting byproduct is that _most_ people disagree about _most_ of the decisions (even in the same party), despite perhaps favoring them for one or two important reasons. If there were a neat way to divide up the power over education, abortion, ..., you could achieve a majority of people being happy about all of the major issues and maybe have a little more time to talk about some other (comparatively) minor ones.