A Retreat From Tribalism
The elections of November 5, 2024 represented a great personal victory for Donald Trump. However, it represented an even greater victory for the citizens of the United States. The country had descended into the darkness of Tribalism described by Victor Davis Hanson in The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism and Globalization are Destroying the Idea of America.
Following the collapse of the Bronze Age Civilizations in 1177 BC, the Mediterranean World fell into centuries of instability and lawlessness:
The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defense than capable of confidence. In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. (p. 102)
The Greek city-state (Polis) sought to curb this instability. Again, from Hanson:
The invention of politics and the rule of law initiated the slow and fragile ascent over the normal, natural state of tribalism. Ethnicities surrendered their primary identities and loyalties to a higher notion of transcendent ideas, bonds and traditions. The resulting Greek notion of “politeia”(constitutional government) gave citizens natural rights to elect their own officials and make their own laws despite accidents of clan or tribal affiliation…
The ensuing cornerstone of Western citizenship was the equality of all those free males who qualified for rights. Such new citizens might otherwise not be related by blood or even aware of any common affinities other than geography, religion, language or shared history and values. In other words, the state appropriated the legislative, judicial, executive and military clout of tribal leaders. The latter had previously made and enforced agreements, settled arguments and gone to war on the sole basis of helping their own clan and hurting another.
Yet tribalism never ended. Its pull is only suspended and suppressed—at best by constitutional pluralism, at worst sometimes by dictatorial or ideological coercion. How odd that America’s current progressive turn to tribalism and primary self-identification by race and gender is reactionary to the core. (pp102-103, emphasis added)
A regression to tribalism would not be far off the mark in describing life in some of our cities, especially those in which gangs, such as MS-13 and Tren de Aragua have taken hold. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) occupied a segment of Seattle in the summer of 2020 during the “Summer of Love”. The riots following the George Floyd protests caused 1-2 billion dollars of damage and at least 25 deaths.
However, tribalism has an even more sinister side. In Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò describes how political, social and economic elites took control of the concept of Identity Politics and used it to advance their own interests.
Witness the tribal pandering by two politicians, Hilary Clinton saying she always carries hot sauce and Joe Biden telling a Black Charlamagne Tha G-d: If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black. And there is Barack Obama chiding “The Brothers” for not supporting Harris. These three actions were a naked appeal to tribalism. It was more about advancing the political interests of the elites than those of the individuals.
This capture of Identity Politics followed the pattern of the capture of the institutions described by Chris Rufo in America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. While most of the world thought that the radicalism of Herbert Marcuse died with the demise of the Weathermen, the Left just went underground and began their long march (mirrors Mao’s Long March of the 1930’s) through the institutions. First, they captured academic departments, then academic administration, then the media and finally government and corporations. They brilliantly captured the language of critical theory and words and phrases like diversity, equity, inclusion, white privilege, Christian nationalism and systemic racism were repeated ad nauseum and pounded into the consciousness of society. They played the ultimate long game.
Their efforts were given a huge boost by the “fundamental transformation” of the United States into Postmodernism by the election of Barrack Obama in 2008. The transformation of every aspect of cultural life was continued by the Biden administration. The dictates of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) ripped through the fabric of everyday life for ordinary citizens, but with a sinister new element added. The Biden administration added yet a new “tribe”: the illegal aliens. The language was again co-opted to call them “undocumented immigrants” and finally, “newcomers”.
Not content to just allow an open border, the Biden administration reportedly began flying hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into 45 cities across the country. Some of this has been given the mantle of legality as a “humanitarian” program which, as of March 2024, had settled 138,000 Haitians, 86,000 Venezuelans, 74,000 Cubans and 58,000 Nicaraguans.
All the individuals in this new “tribe” put an enormous strain on social welfare programs and in some places displace US Citizens, especially in “sanctuary” cities and states. The cost in New York alone is projected to be over $5 billion for 2 years, increasing to $10 billion in 2025. This is obviously unsustainable.
As spectacular as the successes of the New Left appear to be, those very successes have sown the seeds of its ultimate downfall. Their “revolution” is empty. As Chris Rufo puts it:
This is where the critical race theorists reach the final impasse. Their program has become a form of empty professional class aestheticism, designed for manipulating social status within elite institutions, not for alleviating real miseries or governing a nation…The revolution of 1968, although it seems to have captured the edifice of America’s elite institutions, might not be as strong as it appears. It has created a series of failures, shortcomings, and dead ends—and in this gap of contradiction , a counter-revolution can emerge…The great weakness of the cultural revolution is that it negates the metaphysics, morality and stability of the common citizen…While the revolution seeks to demolish America’s founding principles, the counter-revolution seeks to restore them…The counter -revolution must be understood not as a reaction or a desire to return to the past, but as an movement with the intention of reanimating the eternal principles and reorienting the institutions towards their highest expression. The foundations of the counter-revolution are thus moral in nature, seeking to guide the common citizen towards what is good and to rebuild the political structures so that his moral intuitions can be realized in society…If the endpoint of the critical theories is nihilism, the counter-revolution must begin with hope…The counter-revolutionaries must put themselves in the breach, so that the common citizen can finally look up, with his worn and weary face, toward that eternal and unchanging order that will put him at peace and will allow him to finally escape the emptiness and desolation that surrounds him. (Emphases added)… —America’s Cultural Revolution, pp 277-282
This counter-revolution finally resonated with the population culminating in the landslide election of Donald Trump in November 2024. Donald Trump’s win and, at least the Senate races, confirm that concern on the open border, the economy and the explosion of homelessness and crime have caught the attention of the electorate and they seemed to be able to break out of their “tribes” and vote the issues important to them.
While it appears the citizens of the United States have won a great battle, the war is far from over. One could liken it to the Battle of Midway, the first great naval win for the Unites States in WWII. The Unites States destroyed four Japanese fleet carriers, but 3 years of intense war remained before ultimate victory. These are some of the difficulties that are unresolved:
· Although Kamala Harris has conceded and pledged an orderly transfer of power, she has pledged not to “give up fighting for our democracy”. It is difficult to fathom, as democracy is the very thing that spoke so eloquently in the election.
· The democrat governors of 8 states have come out with official stances of how to counter a Trump win: Walz (Minnesota), Newsom (California), Pritzker (Illinois), Hochul (New York), Healey (Massachusetts), Moore (Maryland), Murphy (New Jersey) and Shapiro (Pennsylvania).
· The Deep State is still firmly entrenched in the workings of all aspects of the government and can be expected to resist any change that would lessen its power.
· The same is true for the proponents of DEI operating in every branch of government including the military, academia and many corporate offices. The administrators of the myriad DEI programs can also be expected to resist threats to their economic and political power.
· The wars in Ukraine and the Mideast will need a fair resolution in order to achieve a lasting peace. The ideological forces driving Iran and other radical Muslim nations will need some dampening. However, Trump has proven with the Abraham Accords that he is capable of visionary thinking in this regard.
· A thoughtful way of dealing with the vast new “tribe” of those who entered the country illegally will need to be devised. It is unclear exactly how many are in this tribe, but it may be as high as 10% of the population. The country can no longer keep supplying them with food, shelter, medical care, etc. at the expense to the citizens. To do so would forever cheapen the value of citizenship at a time when it badly needs to be raised.
· The forced celebration of certain lifestyle choices to the detriment of others must cease. Although our society is based on tolerance, there is a limit to what society can impose upon behavior that affronts other members of society. Biologic women should not be forced to compete nor share locker rooms with biologic men. “Drag Queen Story hours” should not be forced upon children in schools or libraries. Parents need to be fully informed partners in the education of their children, not adversaries to be overcome or ignored.
· We must not repeat the lesson of Alexander the Great. Although Hellenism in some forms survived his early death, there was not the depth of leadership that would have allowed a truly lasting cultural change. Trump is a remarkable man who through his energy, drive and vision stopped an ocean liner from running aground. What is now needed is the creation of a courageous and knowledgeable crew to sail it in the right direction.
Finally, and perhaps most critically, we must not ignore that all of this will only be able to be accomplished through the grace of the LORD of the Universe. It will involve not only ideological, but also spiritual, changes.
Naomi Wolf understands that the loss of freedom and liberty caused by our response to COVID had a deeply spiritual side. In Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age, she expertly crafts a story of incredible heroes and disappointing villains, as she relates her own journey of discovery during The Great COVID Catastrophe:
Months before, I had asked a renowned medical freedom activist how he stayed strong in his mission as his name was besmirched, and as he faced career attacks and social ostracism. He replied with Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I had thought of this response often in the intervening time. It made more and more sense to me…
I told the group that I was now willing to speak about God publicly because I had looked at what had descended on us from every angle, using my normal critical training and faculties, and I had concluded that it was so elaborate in its construction, so comprehensive, and so cruel, with an almost superhuman baroque imagination made out of the essence of cruelty itself—that I could not see that it had been accomplished by mere humans working on the bumbling human level in the dumb political space.
I felt it all around us, in the majestic nature of the evil encompassing us, the presence of “principalities and powers”—awe-inspiring levels of darkness and of inhuman, anti-human forces. In the policies unfolding around us I saw anti-human outcomes being consistently generated: policies aimed a killing children’s joy; at literally suffocating children, restricting their breath, speech and laughter; at killing school; at killing ties between families and extended families; at killing churches and synagogues and mosques; and, from the highest levels, from the President’s own bully pulpit down, demands for people to collude in excluding, rejecting, dismissing, shunning, hating their neighbors and loved ones and friends.
I have seen bad politics all my life and this drama unfolding around us went beyond bad politics, which is silly and manageable and not that scary. This—was metaphysically scary. In contrast to hapless human mismanagement this darkness had a tinge of the elemental evil that underlay and gave such hideous beauty to the theatrics of Naziism; it was the sort of nasty glamour that surrounded Leni Riefenstahl films.
In short, I don’t think humans are smart or powerful enough to have come up with this horror all alone. ..
It is time to start talking about spiritual combat again. Because I think that that is what we are in, and the forces of darkness are so big that we need help.
What is the object of this spiritual battle?
It seems to be nothing short of the human soul. (emphases added)—Facing the Beast, pp 43-46
Excellent piece...thank you!
Amen! Thank you 🙏🏻🇺🇸