The Patriot Post® · Tribalism and the War on the American Dream

“You cannot dedicate yourself to America,” said the president of the United States, “unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.”

It sounds Reaganesque, but The Gipper never said it. Nor did Jack Kennedy, nor Teddy Roosevelt. No, the author of this powerful statement about the American melting pot was no less a “progressive” than Woodrow Wilson, who spoke these words in 1915 during an address to several thousand newly naturalized citizens.

My, how far we’ve “progressed.” These days, such sentiment coming from the Left would be unthinkable. The very mention of the American melting pot has long since become a microaggression, and any Democrat who dared do it would be immediately set upon by the social media mob.

Why? Because the American people no longer see themselves as Americans above all else. Instead, we see ourselves as belonging to one of two political tribes — one of the Left and one of the Right. And beyond that, we see ourselves as primarily members of some smaller, more intimate tribe. We see ourselves as hyphenated Americans or as some other aggrieved or oppressed subgroup. Oh, some of us still consider ourselves Americans first and foremost. But we’re now derided as xenophobes, racists, white supremacists — or, even worse, as patriots.

A certain Yale University law professor, Amy Chua, an expert in the field of ethnic conflict and globalization, has written extensively and intelligently about this phenomenon. “Tribalism,” she says, “is hard-wired into us … and it’s really a recipe for civil war.”

During a recent address at Brigham Young University, Chua, who in 2018 authored the book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, lists three primary factors of our nation’s ever-increasing tribalism: demographic transformation, social media, and the divide between coastal elites and rural Americans.

As for the demographic piece, Chua notes that whites are on the verge of losing their majority status at the national level. When? The Pew Research organization says sometime around 2044, while the U.S. Census puts it out just a few years more, at 2050. “But,” Chua says, “it’s gonna happen.” She notes that non-Hispanic whites are already not a majority in a number of states, and that more than half of white Americans feel that they are now subject to more discrimination than minorities. According to Pew, she notes, 30% of Democrats believe that there is some or a lot of anti-white discrimination.

Chua notes that when people feel they’re under attack, they’re most defensive. That’s when they self-segregate. And she says that all groups — whites, blacks, Muslims, Christians — “all feel attacked, persecuted, and pitted against other groups for jobs, spoils, university spots, and most importantly, the right to define the nation’s identity.”

Chua calls social media “an outrage machine,” and who can argue? Facebook and Twitter have become cesspools of invective and intolerance.

As for the growing divide, she sees coastal elites as composing one tribe. “They think of themselves as open-minded,” she says, “but they’re actually very, very insular, cosmopolitan, secular, politically correct.” It’s “urban and coastal elites, and the rest of the country,” she adds. “They do tend to view people who voted for President Trump as racist bigots.” And she ought to know. She works at Yale, after all.

“Many in middle America view coastal elites as arrogant globalists who hate America and want to destroy its economy and freedoms,” she says. Again, who can argue with that? She warns, though, that this growing tribalism comes at a time “when China is very powerful and unified and extending its influence around the world.”

Where the threat of China and its monoculture is concerned, she sees an American advantage. “We’re uniquely equipped to overcome political tribalism,” says Chua, because “America is rooted in principles and ideals, and not blood.”

How do we get beyond our tribalist instincts? Chua offers three suggestions: “The first is to be more protective of the country’s special national identity. The second is to promote and experiment with concrete, practical initiatives designed to help Americans see each other as fellow Americans. The third is teaching children U.S. history in a way that tells the truth while conveying the idea of America as a special nation.”

“Progressives,” says Chua, “need to be aware of the danger in their scorched earth approach to America, its history, and its ideals.” Indeed. At Yale, Chua often hears that the U.S. is “a land of oppression … it’s a country founded on genocide … built on and structurally committed to white supremacy.”

And, she notes, “It’s hard to find a reason to fight for America when you believe these things.”

She’s right. And this, to us, seems like the very heart of it. The Left is teaching our children to hate their country, and it’s been doing it for decades. How can we expect future generations to defend that which they don’t hold in high esteem?

Evidence of this is already apparent. As we reported last month, a recent poll by Quinnipiac asked Americans what they would do if they were in the same position as the Ukrainian people are now: stay and fight, or leave their country? A majority, 55 percent, say they’d stay and fight, while a sizable minority, 38 percent, say they’d leave the country. But when it comes to party affiliation, the numbers are stunning: Republicans at 68-25 percent and independents at 57-36 percent say they’d stay and fight, while Democrats at 52-40 percent say they’d leave the country. Wow.

As Chua sums it up at the end of her book on tribalism: “What holds the United States together is the American Dream … a promise of freedom and hope for every individual on these shores. But it is also a call on all of us to make true the myths we tell ourselves about what America has always been.”

If only more American educators understood all this — and had the guts to call out the progressives and mention “The American Dream” without apology.