Fortress Democrat
Bunkering down into denialism is a dead end strategy
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Over a month into Trump 2.0, it appears that most Democrats have decided to bunker down in the Manichean fortress of their familiar #Resistance mindset. As far as I can see, the reigning assumption is that everyone and everything that’s Good in America has no choice but to retreat back into the political and cultural equivalent of a heavily fortified tower as hordes of MAGA “fascists” run riot over the land. The hoi polloi are gleefully burning down villages while their greedy billionaire overlords desecrate the hallowed grounds of the Castle. Still, the #Resistance lives to fight another day, valiantly defending the last standing Party fortress.
Determined #Resistance lawyers shoot arrows out of its narrow windows (technically known as “arrow loops” or, more interestingly, “loopholes”) in a desperate attempt to keep Trump and his MAGA minions at bay. The only remaining hope for those trapped in the tower is to trigger court-ordered blockages that will staunch the bleeding until the 2026 midterms. Then they can capitalize on The Enemy’s mistakes, stage a counter-surge, and regain lost ground. And finally, from that improved position, they can successfully reconquer the Castle in 2028 — at which point, presumably, all will be well in the land once again.
I’m being facetious — but only somewhat. The vibe I get listening to distraught Dems reminds me of the scene in The Lord of the Rings depicting the “Battle of Helm’s Deep”. (Side note: If you’ve never watched Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, it’s a masterpiece and you should.) There’s that same sense of shocked horror at having been forced to retreat back into the inner stronghold of the Castle as wave after wave of hideous Orcs storm the gates. (“Aragorn! Fall back to the Keep! Get your men out of there! To the Keep! To the Keep!”)
The #Resistance mindset is rooted in a mythological sense of representing the embattled Forces of Good fighting back against Trumpian Evil. Unfortunately for Democrats, however, today’s battle of Blue versus Red State America takes place in a mundane rather than mythological realm. And here, in the real world, such clear-cut categories simply don’t apply. Much as Dems would like to believe otherwise, they’re not the moral equivalent of The Fellowship of the Ring, banding together to “Save Our Democracy” from the growing power of the Evil Lord Sauron (Trump), his henchman Saruman (Elon), and their destructive Orc army (MAGA). Such imaginings are pure delusional hubris. And even if they may provide a dopamine hit in the moment, they’re not good for the Democrats — individually and collectively — or for the country as a whole.
Denial is a Powerful Drug
If life within Fortress Democrat seems necessarily limited, it also appears to have certain benefits. First, you know where you are within our rapidly changing national and international landscape. The ground may be shaking, tectonic plates may be shifting. But at least you don’t have to be out there trying to navigate this treacherous terrain on your own. Bunkering down with like-minded others in a fortified tower provides a certain sense of embattled security. And while it’s not where you want to be (by rights, your people should be in the Castle, running the country, and preventing any more unwelcome shifts), it’s preferable to standing alone in the unguarded territory outside it.
Second, within the thick walls of Fortress Democrat, you are protected from the dangerous “misinformation” that circulates externally. All news of the outside world is pre-vetted to ensure that it serves the cause. And the mission is simple and unambiguous: Everything and anybody even remotely associated with Donald Trump must be passionately and aggressively opposed at all times, no matter what. (After all, they represent the Evil Power of Mordor, whereas you’re part of the Good Fellowship of the Ring.) Having such clarity and unanimity offers comfort in a rapidly changing and unpredictably volatile time.
Essentially, it all boils down to the power of denial. As Google AI pithily explains:
Denial is a defense mechanism that involves avoiding or rejecting facts that are too difficult to accept. It's a form of self-deception that can help people cope with anxiety and discomfort. However, denial can also prevent people from addressing important issues.
The obvious truth to anyone looking at Fortress Democrat from the outside is that the Party is stuck and stagnant, committed to defending deeply unpopular positions that they can’t justify, even to their own base. As Tablet Magazine documented just before the election, GOP campaign strategists regularly found that “aspects of Democratic governance are simply too insane for (Democratic) voters to find credible, even when they are documented as official U.S. government policy”:
“When you outline the Democratic agenda, you have to water it down, because in both polling and focus groups, people just don’t believe it,” he said. “They are critical of things like boys in girls’ sports, but they tune out stuff about schools not informing parents about transitioning their children. They just don’t believe it’s true. It can’t be.”
By and large, Democrats can’t acknowledge, let alone explain why their Party was so fiercely committed to such policies as open borders coupled with generous benefits for illegal immigrants, extended Covid shutdowns and draconian vaccine mandates, and gender ideology extremism to the point of teaching 10-year olds that they might want to consider puberty blockers as just another option on their “gender journey.” (This list could be made much longer, but you get the idea.)
This policy-level denial is bad. But the underlying problem is even worse. As fellow Substacker Frank DiStefano astutely explained:
We no longer have a left-right spectrum. We have a Brokenist-Denialist spectrum. Everyone who believes the system is broken — and there are a lot of them — is getting pulled into the Republican Party and the right . . . The Democrats, on the other hand, have backed themselves into defending the indefensible. The current system is, in fact, broken, and everyone knows it. It’s archaic, designed for a mid-twentieth century that no longer exists. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. It’s increasingly corrupted. The identitarian experiment the establishment adopted, and which professional elites seemed to love, proved deeply unpopular. Most important, Americans no longer trust the system. A party organized around defending all this without fundamental reform is a loser waiting for defeat.
By and large, the Democrats are unable to understand, let alone respond to this analysis. Unfortunately for them, however, DiStefano is right. The world has changed fundamentally since the mid-20th century. And trying to gaslight voters into believing that our current problems are somehow going to be solved by such nonsensical crusades as “deconstructing the gender binary” is no longer going to work. The legal and monetary mechanisms that helped make such “woke” commitments so powerful are being dismantled. And perhaps more importantly, the long-awaited “vibe shift” has happened: The power of the “critical social justice” crusades of 2014-24 has peaked and will almost certainly continue to decline.
All this and more has left Democrats stuck in a sticky web of denialism. Most fundamentally, they deny that the New Right’s “Brokenist” coalition developed in response to a serious set of deep-rooted social, economic, and political problems that have been negatively impacting a lot of people for a very long time. Instead, they continue to insist that it’s nothing more than a “fascist” movement of racists, sexists, and transphobes that was somehow single-handedly conjured into being by Donald Trump.
From that foundation, the denialism multiples. On the Party leadership side: Denying the Biden was in decline, that his Administration pushed highly unpopular policies, that Kamala was a terrible candidate. On the media side: Denying that the legacy media is mistrusted for good reason, that independent media isn’t often vastly superior, and that Internet censorship wasn’t a thing. On the hated opposition side: Denying that Kennedy’s MAHA movement is pushing for much-needed change to address our chronic disease epidemic, that Tulsi was correct to insist that our “regime change wars” have been disastrous, that Elon’s right when he says that a $35 trillion debt is unsustainable.
Does all this mean that the Trump Administration is wholly fantastic and that every right-thinking person should now be a MAGA Republican? No, it does not. It does mean, however, that many Americans outside Fortress Democrat looked at their two choices in the last election and made a reasonable decision to bet on the team that’s not dedicated to denialism. It also means that the Democrats won’t be an attractive alternative for such voters until they connect with the world outside their echo chamber and come up with new and better ideas to address the most pressing concerns there.
In the short term, it may feel better for loyal Democrats to band together, bunker down, hold the line, and wait it out. But that means not only staying the same while the world outside your Fortress changes rapidly, but not seeing what’s really happening out there at all. And if you can’t see it, you can’t have anything worthwhile to say about it.
Why should anyone outside the claustrophobic confines of Fortress Democrat vote for your Party as long as this situation continues? The fear-mongering strategy of insisting there’s no other alternative because the MAGA Orcs will destroy them otherwise failed. Many voters would rather take their chances on the open terrain outside the Fortress, where at least there’s more freedom to maneuver.
That said, most Americans would welcome some new and better choices. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we’ll have them. So far, the signs aren’t promising. But life can change quickly. And the foundations of Fortress Democrat are crumbling. Eventually, the tower will fall, no matter how heavily fortified it may be. Here’s hoping that something much better somehow manages to arise from that rubble.
I like the metaphor of the fortress. Its main function is to keep things *out.*
Democrats in the fortress are trying to keep out uncomfortable truths.
Democrats lost to a president that four years ago had the lowest approval rating recorded. And in the process shed large chunks of their core supporters. If that doesn’t cause a deep reflection then denialism and TDS is clearly a problem.