It’s not made to make the extremes wider, but to pull the country ever farther to the right. The Right stakes out a position way to the right; the Left “compromises” under the compulsive belief that the middle position must be the correct one, and the new center is that much farther right. Then the Right stakes out a new position even farther right, and the cycle begins again.
The Left has nearly managed to “compromise” this country into fascism. They need to stop compromising and hold actual positions.