alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

March 13, 2008

Tribalism

by AltHippo @ 10:30 am. Filed under 2008 Elections

I wanted to point to two apparently unrelated quotes, both from yesterday, that I believe reflect the tribal nature of our social-political universe.

The first is from Matt Stoller:

First of all, it should come as no surprise that voters vote for candidates who look and talk like them. That’s not racism, per se, it’s more tribalism. Ask any urban politician anywhere and they will tell you that is the case.

The second is from Dana Perino, as quoted in White House Watch:

It is clear that House Democratic leaders have once again bowed to the demands of class-action trial lawyers, MoveOn.org, and Code Pink and put their ideological interests ahead of the national interest.

This brings me to the question: what is my tribe? Who is it that looks like me, talks like me, the group I am naturally inclined to vote with? Is it very different, or different at all from the folks who frequent Code Pink and MoveOn.org?

The clearest answer I can give is that my tribe consists of people that look like the people I hung out with in grad school. People from varying economic backgrounds, with different career aspirations, but they have this in common: a value in learning that lasts them their whole life, and a relationship to society such that they feel compelled to take some kind of an active role in it.

No wonder then, that the Bushies find groups like MoveOn.org and Code Pink so threatening: if the world consisted of educated people who wanted to take an active role in society then the right-wing freak show that makes up Bush’s base would be out of a job.

How does my relationship to tribalism affect my view of the two 2008 Democratic candidates? When I sit back for a moment it’s possible to see that there are different tribes in this case. For the longest time I can’t really say that I identified with one candidate or the other, neither Clinton or Obama was in my tribe. I’m not entirely sure that John Edwards was either, but Elizabeth Edwards I could easily identify as just the sort of person I hung out with in grad school. So, that made me a marginal Edwards supporter.

Since Edwards dropped out of the race I’ve supported Obama mostly because people I know support Obama. That, and because I remember the experience of seeing him at TBA2007. Obama generates positive energy in a room in a way I’ve never seen before in a political candidate. What is sometimes called “Obamania” is for real.

There was a turning point for me about a month ago. After which point I became an Obama supporter for real. It was after I saw Clinton deliver this in a campaign speech:

Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.’

That’s a disturbing statement, and mocks not just candidate Obama, but those of who see cynicism as a dread and growing disease in our world. We need what is called “optimism” in 2008. We need for our world to be informed by a higher law. As Henry David Thoreau put it: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now, put the foundations under them.”

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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