There is something peculiar about a political movement whose followers change their minds about the Supreme Court, America's place in the world, and even their pride in their own country depending on who occupies the White House.
And yet, they remain convinced they're occupying the moral high ground.
It reminds me of Eric Hoffer's 1951 classic, The True Believer, which examined the psychology of mass movements and the ways political identity can shut down critical thinking.
Hoffer understood something about mass movements that remains relevant today: "Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents."
He expands:
“The enemy—the indispensable devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.”
Hatred unifies disparate elements, pulls people away from their individual selves, and is both a means and a product of the movement. A vivid, tangible devil is more effective than positive doctrine alone.
This is a useful way of understanding a Democrat coalition that encompasses everyone from limousine liberals to avowed socialists, radical Islamists, urban minorities, migrants, and single women.
What holds these competing interests together? Hatred of “the devil” of Donald Trump.
When Donald Trump goes away, they will move on to the next “devil”: Ron DeSantis, J.D. Vance, whomever the Republicans nominate to be the next president.
Hoffer notes that movements often falter without an external enemy once the struggle ends.
It is also critical that the “true believer” becomes immunized to countervailing facts that might erode his articles of faith. This is why it is indispensable to cultivate what might be called a “totalitarian mentality.”
“The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates only into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients. The gifted propagandist brings to a boil ideas and passions already simmering in the minds of his hearers.”
As Hoffer continued about insulating believers from reality:
“All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ…. To rely on the evidence of senses and of reason is heresy and treason.”
Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels made a similar point:
“This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.”
Many Democrat voters are cultural Marxists in the sense they are like fish who don’t even know they are wet.
French theorist Jacques Ellul emphasizes total, immersive propaganda that creates a complete explanatory myth and reduces the capacity for independent judgment:
“Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are here in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person.
Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact.”
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov also discussed this effect of "ideological subversion" to "change the perception of reality to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their communities, and their country." He talks about this "great brainwashing process" below.
This totalitarian mindset explains the almost perfect suggestibility of Democrat voters and the malleability of their public opinion.
Consider Hillary Clinton's recent comments about the Supreme Court. As I reported Thursday, Clinton endorsed expanding the Court from nine justices to 13.
"I think instead, we should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power," Clinton said.
The institutional argument against court-packing hasn't changed since Franklin Roosevelt unsuccessfully attempted it in 1937. But Democrat attitudes toward SCOTUS expansion have changed dramatically due largely to a coordinated public relations campaign.
According to Marquette polling, Democratic support jumped from 49 percent in 2019 to 71 percent in 2021. It remained at 68 percent in September 2026. A separate Monmouth poll found that 60 percent of Americans opposed expansion in September 2022. A YouGov poll in May that year showed only 40 percent support.
What changed? The messaging that the Democrat-voting public consumed in the mass media.
Even more disturbing, the Democrat voting base’s love of country is almost entirely dependent on who is in the White House.
A June 2025 Gallup poll found that Democratic pride in America had plunged from 62 percent under Joe Biden in 2024 to 36 percent after Trump's return. Republican pride stood at 92 percent.
The flag hadn't changed. The Constitution hadn't changed. The sacrifices of generations of Americans hadn't changed. The president did.
Thus, WNBA players leaving the court before the national anthem, and LeBron James practicing his golf swing during it, are not just incidental examples of spoiled athletes showing everyone their true colors. They are part of a system of attacking the very institutions that hold us together: God, family, community, and country.
Religion, family, community, and country provide sources of moral authority outside government. For many religious and socially conservative Americans, those commitments offer standards against which politicians and institutions can be judged.
Those standards present barriers to a political movement demanding unquestioning loyalty. But for the Democrat Party, they decide what the “standards” are. And for that increasingly radicalized party, the only “standard” is what gives it political power.
It also explains why Republicans are distrustful of institutions that shape public opinion. A 2025 Gallup survey found that only 8 percent of Republicans trusted the mass media, compared with 51 percent of Democrats.
That is a reflection of the left wielding cultural hegemony in Hollywood, academia, and major news outlets.
Politics is downstream of culture, as the late Andrew Breitbart said. And in America, Democrat voters are uncritical consumers of mass culture.
Whether you are talking about the "madness" of the Democrat mob, which can pillory Shane Gillis for his jokes about scantily clad females at the gym, and on the other hand, savage Sydney Sweeney for her racy sports betting ads, there is nothing holding the left together except it is perpetually queued up for its Orwellian "two minutes hate."
It is no wonder many Democrats display a totalitarian mentality. They are a reflection of the left’s domination of our culture; it is also why they have no tolerance for dissent.
And when the legacy news media have 95% negative coverage of a president, whom Democrats have feared is going to "turn fascist" any day now for the last ten years, it is understandable why the left acts so unhinged.
They are like Pavlov's dogs, and instead of salivating to a ringing bell, they go into heavy mouth-breathing whenever they hear the word "Trump."
