this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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I understand what you're getting at, but I would partially counter with that losing parties may instead weigh their policy decisions more towards the people they know will vote. Rather than potentially wasting time catering for those that have shown that in the end they may not vote at all. I would wager (on top of many other factors) this could be why many countries' historically left leaning parties have been moving more and more towards the centre as time goes on. Labour in the UK are a prime example.
The Labour Party in the UK (with whom I am very familiar, having lived there for over a decade) is a perfect example of a party whose leadership strongly believed the segment of voters to their left had no other option than vote for them, hence kept moving rightwards. This is especially so in Keir Starmer's Labour, with it's flirting with far-right subjects like anti-immigration and transphobia.
The Democrat Party in the US is also another excellent example of a party which stopped caring about voters to their left because they felt such voters had no other option than vote for them, hence Biden's own anti-immigration rhetoric and policies, as well as support for the ethno-Fascist Genocidal political movement of Zionism and why the main Political Propaganda messaging from them in the last election was "Vote Kamala to stop Trump" rather than anything about the qualities that Kamala Harris would bring as President.
I mean, I can see where you're coming from, but historically (at least in the last 3 or 4 decades) in systems with highly rigged voting systems like FPTP, the left-side main party has taken (sometimes very overtly so) left-wing voters for granted and openly pitched ever more rightwards policies in their speeches and then actually enacted them when in office.
Ultimately, even if your theory was correct (and I don't think there was ever a big enough block of left-wingers refusing to vote for the left-side main party to actually satisfy that condition you say will lead that party to shift rightwards, hence there is no experimental evidence either for or against what you suggest, hence it's all a fantasy "what if"), we do know with absolute certainty that "vote for them no matter what" leads the left-side main party to shift rightwards because that's exactly what has happened for at least 3 or 4 decades both in the UK and the US.