Tribalism is an unnecessarily derogatory term for the normal human tendency to form affinity groups. Most tribalism is healthy and benign. What makes tribalism unhealthy is polarization into opposing camps of “Us” vs “Them” in which honest objectivity about ourselves and our opponents gives way to “jingoism:” meaning we lionize our side and demonize the other to a dangerous extreme. Jingoism was coined to describe patriotic fanaticism in wartime, but is most commonly seen in American politics.
The elites have perfected polarization as a tactic for neutralizing the masses, and that phenomenon of orchestrated jingoism-driven polarization is what we see on display today, not organic tribalism. As Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” and thus we are being driven deliberately toward civil war to defeat our stand against globalism.
The elites of the British Empire perfected the divide and conquer technique in geo-politics following World War I, carving up the conquered people into new nation-states to dilute the cultural cohesion of the populations, especially in Europe and the Middle east. Reuniting the “German-speaking people” whom the British had split apart to weaken them politically was the issue that propelled Adolf Hitler to power during the Weimar era leading to World War II.
After WWII, and the stunning advance of mass communication technology, it became easier to manipulate the public, and the Socialist elites who had fled Europe to the United States in the 1930s recognized this was the key to reshaping the world in their image. They quickly infiltrated Hollywood and the media but pushed too hard too fast, triggering a legitimate back-lash in the 1950s that they still mock today as the “Red Scare” as if it was all a baseless conspiracy theory.
By the 1960s they had refined their skills and the rest is history – specifically the history of the culture war that we Constitutionalists have been losing steadily for seventy years as mass-media driven leftist “narratives” supplanted self-evident truths in the public mind.
The elites are a relatively small group of people who are united in the Marxist theology of Humanism (notwithstanding nominal religious affiliations) and in the agenda of globalism. The measure of their success is the percentage of non-elite Dupes they convince to align with them.
What they fear most is unification of we Constitutionalists and our rescue of the Dupes, so keeping is polarized is essential
How polarization works as a neutralizer is best shown in their response to the Tea Party movement, which arose spontaneously in 2009 against Obama’s Marxist agenda.
To counter the Tea Party, the elites did two things. First, they created a polar opposite called Occupy Wall Street and deployed their standing army of street activists Dupes to make it newsworthy. That was to shift the Tea Partiers focus away from the elites toward a visible and familiar adversary. Second, they tasked the Republican establishment to absorb the Tea Party into the GOP and diffuse it. Viola, the Tea Party was neutered.
However, being a true ground-up revolution it continued to spread and grow across the world – fanned by the hubris of Obama, who thought he could force the global socialist order into reality during his presidency. He turned up the heat too fast and the sleeping populist frog woke up and jumped out of the pot. That in turn triggered Brexit in the elites’ stronghold of London, and Donald Trump in the elites’ stronghold of New York. And because of those two victories, there is real hope for defeating globalism.
Now back to the problem of forced tribalism in the United States. Although it can work in our favor in the short term, while the “Us” is a partnership of Constitutionalists and Conservative Populists, and the “Them” is the Purple Uniparty of the Clintons/Bushes/Obama/Biden and Soros, we’re headed for civil war unless – after we re-elect President Trump – we transition from war-time tribalism to the peacetime reconstruction.
Here is where the unparalleled wisdom of Christ comes in. He is the one told us that we must love our enemies, and inspired Paul to advise us that “inasmuch as it is within your power, live at peace with all men.”
Today we’re fighting a defensive war with the hard left who are vicious aggressors working to overthrow our president and constitution and install a Marxist regime. It’s not possible to live at peace with these opponents now. We must defeat them!
But after we reelect President Trump, as I am certain will occur, we will have the power and opportunity to reconstruct America in the same way that the God-fearing Greatest Generation reconstructed Germany and Japan after WWII.
Our war-time jingoism – in which all our adversaries have one group identity – must give way to what Chuck Colson called “restorative justice” in which our goal is to identity and rehabilitate those individuals whose minds and hearts are reclaimable, while stripping power from those who are not.
Yes, the main culprits behind the anti-Trump coup must be prosecuted and jailed. Yes, the deep state must be purged like cancer from our government. Yes, the Marxists must be gently but firmly removed from all the institutional seats of power and influence, starting with our public schools and universities. But we must never allow tribalism and jingoism to make us behave like our adversaries who cannot see the humanity in each person. We must have sympathy for the Dupes whose primary fault is believing the leftist propaganda their lives have been steeped in since childhood.
What then must our post-war agenda be? It must be the reimposition of the rule of law and ethics, and a return to the “melting pot” mind-set in which all tribes and cultures within our borders are one American family – all subject to the values and vision of Constitutionalism.
So by all means let’s make the best of this forced tribalism until we win, then let’s get back to showing the world what true American greatness really looks like.
