Age of Tribalism

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How can this be? The center has fallen apart. The extremist of the right and the left political parties battle for control. One argues for capitalism unchecked and the other battles for socialism unfurled. One advocates smaller and shrinking government and the other advocates for a social justice and politically correct government. These extremes battle for the soul of our nation and the social contract of American life. Neither reflect of the nation’s essence or pragmatism. Neither reflects the nation’s spirit of justice and the betterment of a civil society.

No, neither extreme reflects the heart of America nor should they. These political extremes only reflect our fears and insecurities. The essence of America and Americans has always been the ability to find compromise and pragmatism to ensure its continuation.  

Of late, this continuation has been consigned to insignificance, in part, because the current polarization of our political system imparts a duality of America.  The push and pull of materialism that emboldens the current dysfunction and results in tribalism. This tribal nature impacts America’s ability to function as a governing state, and creates angst, hate, and resentment from those who view themselves as powerless.

The fact is simply this: The monied interest—within the perception of those with the lack of access, lack of opportunity, lack of surety and certainty are no longer able to see the meritocracy beneficial—are the enemy of the people. The monied interest self-interest are at the expense of the average American. The separation of the haves and the haves not grows greater every day, every week, every month, and every year. The haves not are relegated to obscurity and insecurity descending further into debt and anxiety.

The anxiety is realized through the revelation that the meritocracy has failed with the exception of a very few. The American dream cannot be attained through hard work and a steady course of conviction and morality anymore. Indeed, some see the dream as only obtainable through the guise of narcissism and selfishness. The “ME” generation, of the Baby Boomers by-gone era, has nothing on the “ME ME ME” generation of the Millennials’ self-absorption is the standard bearer. And, along with this betrayal of America core values (success through hard work) has resulted in the tribal camps of politicization.

This politicization did not begin with the Millennials generation, but it certainly escalated it, as the Baby Boomers realized towards the end of the century that a new civilization was upon them with the defeat of the “evil empire”—the Soviet Union—and new era for humanity required better tending to the garden that was Earth.

No longer could the United States-and other Western democracies ignore the hardship of the lesser nation-states, in which, they exploited for the benefit of the Cold War.

No longer could the Western democracies let the plight of the “Others” be in servitude.

No longer could the Western democracies let the suffrage of the “lesser” states not earn their own form meritocracy in the marketplace.

No longer could the Western democracies monopolize or “rig” the market just for themselves. The promoting of capital markets could no longer sustain the idealism of meritocracy, because corporate interest (monied interest) maintain an overseer elevation above the “lesser” nations’ states interest by globalizing labor and manufacturing—and even though “greed is good” for capitalism it also tyrannical and corrupt.

Consequently, communities and individuals within the system are left behind. Morality and ethics are sacrificed in the name of profits and the stockholders. And in the end, the body politics—created grievance, national populism, and tribalism on a scale that no longer could be contained through ritual, through slogans, through honoring traditions.

Politicians, of both parties in America and in some Western democracies, failed to anticipate the change in civil evolution of the existential condition—and some simple questions. What if we win the Cold War? How do we bring Russia into the fold of Western capitalism? How do we move further the rest of the world into modernity that are not like “us”? These questions ultimately never seem to be realized in full form and laid bare in ephemeral thought.

Fleeting thoughts left the Baby Boomers and the Millennials, and those in between, in a cloistered bubble of self-serving informational loop. The “Space Age,” the “Information Age,” or whatever “Age” that moved modernity into a product of over saturation melancholy angst and the shrinking of the existential condition to white nationalism, self-serving populism, and authoritarianism the effect remains—the rise of Tribalism.

Tribalism remains a symptom and a cause of the country’s dysfunction. Nevertheless, the betrayal of the leadership’s failure to lead instead of fueling the fires of dissension has the country falling towards collapse. A collapse many view inevitable and possibly towards revolution. Others feel that the collapse may be the only way to move forward and allow for “fresh blood” to replace the institutional limits and structures in order for modernity to evolve.

New strictures and new structures, in this case, are essentially to redefine the access of power and the opportunities for the disenfranchised so that equity can appease the masses. While divisiveness and disunity smoke the field, this appeasement of the people may be a long form for the monied interest the time to reshape their advantage.

While reshaping their advantage, the monied interest sow distrust, bitterness, and grievance holding court over the disenfranchised, the disadvantaged, and the other 99 percent who wait for the meritocracy to begin working again.

The monied interest retool for their benefit. The playbook of their consistency remains the same. In essence, tribalism performs a task that has been earmarked by the centuries:  escape from religious persecution, revolution from an oppressing Monarchy, the founding of the pinnacle “Enlightenment” period outcome—the birth of a nation-state free from Gods and Kings, survival of political intrigue, drive towards industrialization, war both from within and without, modernity’s expansion, and now post-modernity.

But post-modernity has a greater price, the question of equity and opportunity are more fervent than ever before; in fact, that post-modernity has led to earth shattering quakes in the institutions of this liberal democracy and the continuum of history. Unlike previous empires, (such as Rome and the many dynasties of China), the currents of time allowed for the claxon to sound prior to the impact of change—this is still true today, but the riptides of history are far more turbulent and violent—and less opportunity (and time) to correct or at the very least adjust.

Communities—rural, suburban, and urban alike are bound to post-modernity’s over saturation of informational foreplay and self-gratification. From the Internet, to cable, to social media platforms instruct, construct, and destruct the people’s knowledge—and of history. It’s the destruction that harms. Although, construction and instruction often fortify institutions—it is the destruction that counterbalances or destroys those institution often from within (see DOJ recent rulings on Roger Stone’s sentencing). Tribalism closes off the openness of liberal democracies, but it especially devolves and dissolves institutions that sustains, at the very least, the appearance of “Rule of Law” and equity.

Indeed, in the post-modernity world institutions are deconstructed and the pillars long established by traditions, by ceremony, and by “Rule of Law” begin to disintegrate under the pressure of factionalism. This factionalism also benefits monied interest class such as corporatism, autocrats, an individual with “means”, but especially aids the enemy outside who see individualism as a dysfunction of the human condition. One prime example of this assault on individualism would be of China oppression of Hong Kong’s justice system and public demonstrations. Another would be the subversion of public’s trust in its electoral process further sowing disenchantment with its leadership and structural systems long held as trustworthy.

The public trust, an essential requirement of liberal democracies, is under violent confrontation from the monied interests, self-serving fear mongers, white nationalists, evangelicals of all stripe (secular and religious), and adversarial foreign nation-states blessing the ascension of tribalism from the shadows. Tribalism disrupts and deconstructs institutions and circumvents the traditional power structures, which allows for the never-ending cycle of “us” versus “them.”

In the end, the “End of History”, which some proclaimed with the fall of the Soviet Union (Russian empire) towards the conclusion of the 20^th century, was a matter of a chapter concluding. The existential fight for authoritarianism versus self-governance remains. Tribalism, although an ancient political system, has been revived to seize post-modernity chaos and uncertainty. The “Age of Tribalism” may roost for some time, but the outcome has not yet been determined. And, the price for the outcome may not be shone until the haze obscuring the horizon dissipates.