cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51582749
You’re conflating habitual non-voters with previously reliable voters deliberately withdrawing their support. They’re not politically equivalent.
A huge group that routinely doesn’t vote, for thousands of different reasons, sends no coherent signal. A measurable part of your coalition abandoning you over specific failures absolutely does.
And “make them fear you” is just a more dramatic way of describing electoral leverage. If losing those voters can cost Democrats elections, they have an incentive to win them back.
Whether they actually respond correctly is another question. But guaranteeing them your vote regardless of what they do certainly gives them less reason to, im sure you can appreciate that much?