To the Fuddy-Duddies on My FB Friends List Who Really Thought the Past 46 Years Were Golden

There’s a real pattern here, and it’s one that shows up again and again in periods of structural economic rupture. When a political party begins to transform—whether through ideological hardening, elite capture, or internal factionalization—there’s always a cohort of respectable gatekeepers who insist that nothing fundamental is changing. They cling to the old self‑image of the institution long after the institution has drifted into something else entirely.

That “fuddy‑duddy” stance isn’t just stubbornness. It’s a psychological defense mechanism. Admitting that the GOP was undergoing a deep transformation would have required acknowledging that:

- the post‑industrial working class was in profound distress  

- the old economic consensus had broken down  

- the party’s base was shifting from suburban managerial types to downwardly mobile, culturally alienated voters  

- the tools of mid‑century politics—op‑eds, donor networks, think‑tank white papers—no longer mediated political energy  

For many establishment figures, that was simply too destabilizing to accept. So they defaulted to denial.

Meanwhile, the people living through deindustrialization weren’t experiencing an abstract policy debate. They were experiencing:

- the collapse of local labor markets  

- the erosion of community institutions  

- the loss of status and identity tied to industrial work  

- the humiliation of being told that globalization was “good for them” in the long run  

That’s a combustible mix. And when a political party taps into that anger—whether constructively or destructively—it becomes a force that polite commentators can’t easily explain using their old frameworks.

What I'm describing is the classic mismatch between elite perception and mass experience. The elites see continuity; the people living the rupture feel revolution. And by the time the gatekeepers finally admit something has changed, the change is already irreversible.

There’s a fascinating—and frankly tragic—dynamic here, and it mirrors patterns you can see in other historical moments when an establishment faction is drifting into dysfunction while its loyal base insists everything is fine. This isn’t about individuals being foolish; it’s about the psychology of belonging, identity, and institutional trust. Now I'm talking about the Democratic voter who now wants things to get back to normal...THEIR normal.

A few forces tend to converge.

1. Identity loyalty beats situational awareness. For many long‑time Democratic voters, the party isn’t just a political vehicle. It’s a moral identity:  

- the party of civil rights  

- the party of science  

- the party of competent governance  

- the party that protects the vulnerable  

When you’ve internalized that story, acknowledging institutional decay feels like betraying your own moral self‑image. So denial becomes a kind of self‑protection.

2. The “respectable class” psychology. This is where my “fuddy‑duddy” motif really lands. Many loyal Democratic voters—especially older, educated, suburban ones—have a worldview shaped by mid‑20th‑century norms:  

- institutions are basically sound  

- experts are trustworthy  

- proceduralism is stabilizing  

- extremism is always “on the other side”  

That worldview makes it extremely hard to perceive when your own institution has drifted into sclerosis, risk‑aversion, or elite capture.

3. Fear of the alternative. A huge part of the denial is defensive. If the GOP is perceived as dangerous or destabilizing, then admitting Democratic dysfunction feels like opening the door to something worse.  

So the logic becomes:  

“Even if our side is flawed, criticizing it helps them, so we must not.”

This is how parties slide into self‑inflicted stagnation.

4. The professional‑managerial class’s comfort buffer.

Many loyal Democratic voters are insulated from the economic shocks that radicalized the deindustrialized. Their lives didn’t collapse. Their communities didn’t hollow out. So they interpret unrest as:  

- irrational  

- misinformed  

- manipulated  

- “not how politics is supposed to work”  

This creates a profound empathy gap. They don’t feel the rupture, so they assume no rupture exists.

5. The myth of the “adult in the room”. There’s a persistent belief that technocratic competence will eventually restore order. This faith in managerialism becomes a kind of secular religion. When the system fails to deliver, loyalists often double down rather than reassess.

6. The comfort of narrative continuity. Admitting that the party has changed—or that the country has changed—requires confronting uncertainty. Many people prefer the reassurance of familiar narratives, even if those narratives no longer describe reality.

If you zoom out, the pattern is almost archetypal:  

A party’s base clings to the old self‑image long after the institution has mutated. The denial isn’t stupidity; it’s a coping mechanism for a world that no longer matches the stories people grew up believing.

We can explore how this dynamic compares to other historical cases—late‑Third Republic France, post‑war British Labour, or even the late Soviet intelligentsia. Each one offers a different angle on how loyalists sustain denial even as the ground shifts beneath them.