I mean it matters in a technical sense, but in all honesty this situation is proof positive that votes don't really matter, on the whole. The masses are always going to be swayed by opportunistic sociopaths and there's not much anyone can do about it, besides becoming a more convincing sociopath. It's not left, right, or any party. If we leveled all the existing institutions tomorrow and rebuilt from scratch, people could still pull "think of the children" and it would still be just as effective.