Tribalism and Partisanship

Tribalism is a human trait. It is survival. We pick a tribe, or it picks us, then we defend whatever the tribe values. Reason and objectivity are not a factor. In sports this is mostly harmless. In politics and civic life it is not harmless.

I am from New England. We are Patriots football fans. If a referee makes a bad call that hurts our team we are mad. If they make a bad call helps our team we pretend we did not see it. We are not objective, we are fans.

In sports tribalism gives an outlet for passions. It can be a distraction from other drudgery. But even here there are limits. Most fans want their team to follow the rules. They do not want them to cheat and they do not want them to intentionally hurt opposing players. When those lines are crossed fans say “we don’t want to win like that”, or “that’s not who we are”. It shows that a deeper sense of right and wrong has been violated. That is important.

Partisanship is tribalism for politicians. Here the danger is we trick ourselves that the stakes are so high for this election that nothing is off limits. The guardrails break down. We see other people, even our neighbors, as enemies because they are on the other side of a political divide. We believe that we must win at all cost.

When people defend the president in spite of unprecedented corruption and a total lack of character because this bill must pass or that judge needs to be appointed, they lose something of themselves. Where are the people saying we do not want to win like this, this is not who we are.

Yesterday the former head of the FBI, a political opponent of the president, died. The president posted on his social media account he was glad that he was dead. And people from his tribe pretended not to notice.

This is not who we want to be.