Tribalism in American Politics

For John, BLUF:  If one side or the other will not grant their opponents the right to be wrong then we will be in political trouble.  Trouble if those seen wrong are shunned.  Deep trouble if they are rooted out and punished.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Progressive Tribalism Beats The War Drums

From The American Conservative, by Mr Rod Dreher, 7 October 2018.

Here is the lede:

I would like fair-minded liberal readers to take a look at this op-ed from The New York Times, and consider that this is exactly the kind of left-wing racist rant that drives many of us white people into the arms of the Republican Party — not out of any particular love for the GOP, but out of fear of what this progressive racism would do in power.  Alexis Grenell, the author, is a white woman and a Democratic strategist.  Here’s the headline on her article.  Note well that authors do not choose their headlines.  This was written by someone at the Times:

White Women, Come Get Your People

.

They will defend their privilege to the death.

As an aside the headline is a bit awkward.

Here is the conclusion of the article, and it points to a bad future if we don't mend our ways:

Alexis Grenell — who earned her master’s degree in 2015 from an Ivy League school (Columbia) — is the face and the voice of elite liberalism.  The Times editors read her savage essay and considered it within the mainstream of commentary, whereas no responsible editor of any serious publication would have published the same kind of rhetoric wielded against people of color.

Rivers of blood … blood pact … gender traitors … defend their privilege to the death.

This is the language of tribalism.  This is blessed by elite liberal gatekeepers, as long as it is wielded by the Righteous Tribe, against the Deplorable Tribe.

Members of the Deplorable Tribe are fools if they fail to notice this, and to respond to it.  And you’re a fool if you don’t recognize that you are part of the Deplorable Tribe whether you want to be or not.

I prefer not to be.  I prefer to be part of the American tribe, judging people not on the basis of their reproductive organs or the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  That’s the America I want to live in.  It’s the America that people like Alexis Grenell and the editors of The New York Times want to end.

Useful to get that learned.  These people are Jacobins.

So the accusation of being a Jacobin may not mean much to you, but if that is so, it is because you don't know your history.  Let us cheat and check the dictionary:

jacobin | noun

historical  a member of a democratic club
established in Paris in 1789,  The Jacobins were the
most radical and ruthless of the political groups
formed in the wake of the French Revolution, and in
association with Robespierre they instituted the
Terror of 1793-4.

The Terror?  Here is a statistic:

Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris.

In the Comments of Mr Rod Dreher's article:

I’m just waiting for the day when the NYT changes it’s tagline to “White People are our Misfortune”.

A classic reference.

Like Mr Dreher, "I prefer to be part of the American tribe".  And I prefer that we give others the space to be wrong, and they us.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff