Both parties play politics to increase their base.
Democrats are more supportive of immigrants than Republicans because they know a greater % of immigrants will support the Democratic party.
Republicans are reducing support for education (example: Betsy DeVos as secretary of education). They know the more education any voter has the less chance they will vote Republican.
I don't think that is accurate. Both parties play politics to manipulate and control their bases. Not to increase them.
Increasing your base implies that you are attempting to gain converts. But really, what the parties want to do is to reduce their bases down, trading quantity for purity. That's why we have such bad gerrymandering problems.
I agree. The extreme right and left are dominating both parties reducing their broader appeal.
That's because both parties are drifting further and further away from each other. However the parties cater to their constituents.
On the right, we are sick of our establishment sector. Donald Trump was a protest vote. The constitutionalists are pushing the party more right.
On the left, the US Communist Party supported the last three Democrat presidential contenders, and gave accolades to Bernie Sanders, an admitted Socialist.
So where is the middle ground between constitutionalism and Communism? There is none. And that's why I've been saying for some time, that we need to divide our country in half and have two separate countries instead. Conservatives on one side, and liberals on the other. The line would be drawn from north to south, and up to the vote of all Americans.
I would have zero problems with never having to put up with liberalism ever again. In fact, if my side of the country was voted as the conservative side and the liberals had to move out. My property value would triple overnight.