> The voters of those left-wing parties identify as "left" so if a Rush Limbaugh encourages people to distrust the "left" then those voters simply distrust Rush Limbaugh instead of altering their vote.
But what about the center?
> if he points out that both Left-1 and Left-2 have a horrible foreign policy, there's likely Left-3 that opposes Left-1 and Left-2 on that policy
That seems to assume there's a party for every combination of views, but is that realistic? How frequently is there a party that's say, hard right on social policy but very left on economic policy? I get the impression that it usually plays out that you get a few parties that are different "degrees" of left or right (say hard left, left, and center left).
I don't think it is that unrealistic (not every combination, but popular ones). The results from parts of Europe that have many political parties, eg. Germany, show voters being relatively fluid over just a few years [1]. The US, on the other hand, has been consistently split in roughly two for ages. The combination of right on social/left on economics may be somewhat strange in the US now (and perhaps the west in general?), but in China it's the norm.
But what about the center?
> if he points out that both Left-1 and Left-2 have a horrible foreign policy, there's likely Left-3 that opposes Left-1 and Left-2 on that policy
That seems to assume there's a party for every combination of views, but is that realistic? How frequently is there a party that's say, hard right on social policy but very left on economic policy? I get the impression that it usually plays out that you get a few parties that are different "degrees" of left or right (say hard left, left, and center left).