Making sense of toxic political tribalism

A thought-piece on the occasion of the U.S. election to keep you busy while you're awaiting the results

With all eyes on the U.S. election tomorrow, it’s hard to ignore the tension. Both sides, along with outsiders, fear repercussions of the results. I’ve followed the polls with both intellectual curiosity and emotional disbelief. The motivated reasoner inside of me wants to conclude that the race should be no contest in favor of the candidate I support. However, I’m also aware that folks on the other side of the political spectrum believe the exact same thing about their own preferred candidate. At the end of the day, we’re all drawing subjective conclusions based on our own lived experiences. If I’d been adopted at birth and raised by an evangelical family in Nebraska, I’d see the world quiet differently.

And yet, there is bipartisan consensus that the United States, like in other liberal democracies, has become more polarized over the past 40 years. Whereas in 1984 political scientist Robert Axelrod wrote that “the practice of reciprocity is well established” in the U.S. Senate, the most recent U.S. Congress, the 118^th, was the least productive dating back to at least the 1930s (I couldn’t find statistics going further back). 

It feels like a type of toxic tribalism has taken hold that won’t let go as it drives Americans apart from each other. Perhaps you’ve noticed a similar trend in your country if you live elsewhere. No presidential candidate today would win a landslide like Ronald Reagan did in 1984 because neither side is willing to admit the other party’s president can do a good job or their own a bad one.

I grapple with the question of how Americans got to this woeful place, and how one of the candidates transformed the culture of his party, to the chagrin of some but to the thrill of many. Michael Morris offers a framework for understanding this cultural shift in his book Tribal. His starting point is that tribalism is actually more about “us” than about “them.” Previous research indicates that cooperation has been a hallmark of humanity since Homo Erectus that has played an underappreciated role in human evolution. Cooperation stems from our ability to read social cues and adapt them into our own behavior in ways that other primates can’t. For example, chimps and children equally grasped physical concepts object permanence, understanding that you don’t have to see an object to know it’s there. But none of the chimps couldn perform social tasks like taking a cue from a scientist to pop open a plastic tube to eat a treat, whereas all the toddlers did.

Morris’s research points out three unique social instincts that humans have developed: the peer instinct, the hero instinct, and the ancestor instinct. The peer instinct means that we’re influenced by what others around us consider normal, like corporal punishment, smoking in public, or views on homosexuality – things the public's opinions have changed about over the last century. The hero instinct means that we look to admired figures who have distinguished themselves to guide what we think people should be doing, like how to dress, how many children to have, or embracing diversity. The ancestor instinct means that traditions passed down from previous generations shape our views on family, community and national customs.

Many observers have identified the advent of cable television and later the internet and social media as vehicles through which opinion influencers have fueled divisiveness. [1] But there are surely other factors in this complex society exacerbating political divisions. Institutionally, both parties have used the precedence (the “ancestors”) of gerrymandering – the process of creating homogenous electoral districts that favor one party – to help win elections. Gerrymandering promotes more radical candidates who need not worry about appealing to the opposing party in the general election. Meanwhile, social media influencers (the “heros”), who benefit from algorithms that unwittingly encourage radicalism, have used prestige signals to set new, more extreme norms. And the general public is self-sorting politically, with liberals and moderate Republicans flipping to Democrat and conservative Democrats flipping to Republicans, and geographically, moving to areas identified with their party. Residents in homogenous areas are more prone to prevalance signals (the “peers”).

Thus, this divisive ecosystem was amenable to a political novice like Donald Trump. Trump exemplifies the hero model, even if for only a third of the country. Once a fallen mogul, NBC marketing executive John Miller revived his career by casting him in “The Apprentice” as a successful and powerful tycoon. (Recently, Miller expressed regret for creating the mythology of Trump as the ideal businessman.) Myriads of Americans have bought into the mythology and vote for him precisely because they expect him to run the United States as successfully as he ran his businesses, either ignorant of or inured to his six high-profile bankruptcies due to confirmation bias or motivated reasoning.

When Trump began his ascent, he alarmed the Republican establishment, which saw his behavior and values as neither normal nor normative. But, he connected with voters through precedence signals (the “ancestors”). He pledged to bring back coal, oil and manufacturing – all traditional U.S. industries the establishment had allowed to attrition for decades. He defended traditional masculinity and patriotism. As president, he attacked the removal of Confederate statues, warning that Democrats would eventually go after even older traditional figures like Jefferson and Washington. And throughout his trials, which have led to being found liable for battery and defamation and being convicted of 34 felonies, he compared himself to Al Capone, appealing to the traditional outlaw hero.

His supporters reciprocated. The longer he remained their White Knight hero, the more they tolerated and even embraced his iconoclastic behavior. It helped that the pre-pandemic economy continued to expand. When certain behaviors might have caused cognitive dissonance, supporters resolved that dissonance with motivated reasoning – THEY are going after their man, he’s being treated unfairly, he’s the victim, it’s not as bad as it’s being portrayed.

A crucial point that Morris makes about tribalism is that it’s more about “us” then it is about “them”. The MAGA movement is real and sustainable because it provides a sense of belonging. It thrives on its anti-establishment identity and has created a new culture of uncompromising adherence to its values. Back in 1948, Harry Truman was able to rally to victory in part by pointing out to Americans that October that the Republican-controlled legislature had been a “do-nothing” Congress.  Yet, 76 years later, the “do-nothing” nature of the current House of Representatives is a virtue – they put principles over compromise. Democrats, meanwhile, have adopted stricter values that determine who is in and who is out, such as commitment to inclusion and pro-choice policies.

When Trump lost the 2020 election, many observers mistakenly assumed that he was finished, that his party had learned its lesson.  But he had laid the groundwork for his comeback beforehand when he warned the election would be rigged. So absolutely faithful in his victory, a stolen election became the only reasonable explanation. Thus, his supporters became vigilant about anything suspicious. In their minds, they weren’t brainwashed; the evidence was clear. Thus followed January 6. Motivated reasoning shook off the cognitive dissonance caused by the violence: the protesters were tourists, they were let in, the police were the source of violence.

In time, any Republican who stood up to him was eventually expelled from the tribe, voted out of office or shunned. Hundreds of senior GOP figures, from former Trump White House officials up to Liz Cheney, who was once #3 in the House and is the daughter of a former Republican VP, have publicly backed Kamala Harris. But their endorsement means nothing to Republicans who no longer share their values.  

And so, Trump enters tomorrow’s election as the slight favorite in a toss-up race. The once anti-establishment candidate is now the unquestioned tribal leader. His vision for America and how to do politics has become normative for nearly half of America, while many others reluctantly support him because at the end of the day, they are loyal to the Republican tribe. 

I have focused on the rise of Trump because his political success has dazzled and baffled people more than any other politician in recent memory. But the factors Morris discusses also apply to the way Democratic culture has evolved. Morris states in his conclusion: “Partisan blindness arises from peer code conformity put into overdrive by residential sorting and online echo chambers – a case of epistemic tribalism, where tribe comes before truth.” I notice this trend in my own social media feed; for over a year I have received video suggestions about liberals winning over conservatives in debates and TV studios, Trump making gaffe after gaffe and Harris surging in various polls. If they were all true, this election would truly be a landslide. I ignored them. I’d rather spend my time trying to figure out how to bridge gaps rather than to be convinced that “we won” – which in my book is a lose-lose proposition.

[1] Georgia Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich is credited with – or alternately demonized for – reorienting U.S. politics from being about compromise to being about winning with incendiary late-night speeches on C-Span that drew an ever increasing fanbase over the years. Popular conservative talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh sent prestige signals by amplifying his message to their loyal audiences. Eventually, support for his approach became prevalent enough that it became the norm within the Republican party. Some Democrats saw his success and began to adopt the same norm. Republicans and Democrats have since self-sorted to the point that there is barely any overlap. Whereas both parties had conservative and liberal wings 40 years ago, today Republicans are solidly conservative and Democrats solidly liberal.