Tribalism and Civil Wars

Let's talk about nationalism and patriotism. These are dirty words to the left these days. They lead to wars and "othering" and numerous other offenses. So nationalism is to be shunned. Patriotism is nothing but taking credit for the accomplishments of people who are long dead.

Fine, so we're all cosmopolitans now.

Except we aren't. We're tribal. We always have been. It's baked into our DNA. Many species of animals form groups of some kind - packs, herds, colonies, schools, flocks. This is true for birds, fish, insects and mammals. It goes back hundreds of millions of years to the dinosaurs. All primates form packs.

What sets humans apart from all of these others is our ability to form super-packs. Somewhere in the mists of history we started recognizing people beyond our immediate tribe as part of a larger tribe. This was usually a combination of language and geography. This allowed us to form villages then towns, cities, city states, states and eventually nations.

War is really tribal conflicts on a massive scale.

So if we get rid of national identity then we will have no more wars, right? Wrong.

We still need to be part of a tribe. It's such a powerful urge that we don't even think about it. You can see that happening on the left. They've abandoned America. That's why President Obama was at pains to say that American exceptionalism was no different from German exceptionalism or other nations. He's internalized the idea that nations are bad. That's also why the left is busy tearing down monument and renaming buildings and streets (and possibly cities) and refusing to honor the national anthem. They want to do away with the concept of America in the name of international cosmopolitanism.

But there's a catch. That tribal instinct is still there so they've replaced America with a new tribe - the urban cosmopolitans.

The more you think about it the more obvious this is. They cluster together with other members of their tribe. They insulate themselves from non-tribe members. That's where the bubble comes from and why they are more likely to unfriend a conservative than a conservative is to unfriend them. They are creating ever-stricter tests to see who is and who isn't a member of their tribe. Even tribe member are one shibboleth away from expulsion.

That also explains their extreme reaction to the election of Donald Trump. He may be a New Yorker, but he's not a member of the tribe and they can't stand seeing a non-member in charge. The same is true for his appointees which is why there are calls for life-time punishment for anyone who works for President Trump. They are proclaiming themselves members of a different tribe.

In fact, this is the only reasonable explanation I have for why the left is so unhinged at the idea of President Trump. They often use terms like "nationalist" to prove that he's a crypto-nazi and they went absolutely bananas when he suggested a military parade similar to the one he saw in France. You can't celebrate America! And you can't close the borders.

This impulse has been around for a long time but, until fairly recently, it had a natural counter-force. During the various wars the US fought, tribal bonds tightened. This was especially true during World War II when the Japanese attach on Pearl Harbor made Americans fear foreign invasion. It was also true during the Cold War when America had a rival tribe of equal stature. But, with the exception of a spurt of patriotism following 9/11, those days are long gone. There is no external threat to force us together so we are breaking apart.

So far the right hasn't hasn't responded in kind. We still think of ourselves as Americans and the left as fellow Americans who are acting strangely. We resent being treated as yokels but we still don't feel the need to form a new tribe to replace America.

This is how civil wars start. Two groups within a country decide that tribal membership is more important than national identity. And that's the logical conclusion to the left's attempted destruction of the American ideal. Eventually the outgroup will feel a group identity similar to the ingroup's and fighting will begin in earnest.

Can this be stopped? Maybe but it will take more than a different president to fix things. Certainly none of the Democrats positioning them selves to run will try to join the two tribes. Right now they are competing to see who is the furthest to the left. Their plan is to take control then subjugate the outgroup. But the country is too evenly split for that to work. None of Trump's competitors in the 2016 race was likely to bridge the divide, either.

The rise of a real external threat would go a long way to uniting Americans again but that has its own dangers in the nuclear age. We aren't likely to see a WWIII with a large portion of the populous mobilized like happened in WWII. Modern wars are fought by a small group who in turn are part of their own tribe. This will be important if an actual civil war breaks out. Most of the troops and police come from the conservative outgroup and are unlikely to fight for the elite ingroup.

The best solution would be for the left to realize the need for America and patriotism. Possibly some of the leaders of the left will look at the stress fractures across Europe and take heed.