Wouldn't surprise me if there's some truth to that, considering written fiction tries to put you in the mind of someone else. Like their inner thoughts, fears, beliefs, emotions, and so on. So it's sort of practicing empathy in a way.

The caveat being that being practiced at empathy doesn't necessarily mean one will practice good politics. There are liberals in the imperial core, for example, who are very empathetic and then get mislead by atrocity propaganda into believing that commies, or even just anti-imperialist self-defense liberators, are cartoon villains.