Sorry, I don't get this part--haven't you just compellingly argued that playing chicken is a way to lose elections but win control of the party?

So if you identify with the progressive left, which when left to its own devices will lose elections (this is your premise, correct?--it makes sense that swing states in the U.S. would deliver this result), being sold out means that you're on the winning team. You'd "eat shit" even more if you hadn't been sold out. No?

If this isn't what you're arguing, I'm really confused.

The Republicans have been losing elections that they should have won because of the culture-war-right takeover--they barely managed to take the House when it should have been a landslide in their favor, and in almost every case the races that went the wrong way for them were the ones where the Republican candidate was farther right than the Democratic candidate was far left. No?