What has America come to? Tribalism via Republican candidate assault of a reporter ends in being elected. Did his voters LIKE the idea of an assault? America became powerful by growing out of tribalism. America will not be "Great Again" by returning to tribalism where people cannot work together.
America may NEVER be great again! It is ugly when a politician can get away with assault. A physical smack down is a misdemeanor?
trib·al·ism
ˈtrībəˌlizəm/
noun
noun: tribalism
the state or fact of being organized in a tribe or tribes.
derogatory
the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group.
"a society motivated by cultural tribalism"
synonyms:
sectarianism, chauvinism;esprit de corps
"the latest waves of violence were blamed on tribalism"
pop·u·lism
ˈpäpyəˌlizÉ™m/
noun
noun: populism
support for the concerns of ordinary people.
"it is clear that your populism identifies with the folks on the bottom of the ladder"
the quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people.
"art museums did not gain bigger audiences through a new populism"
na·tion·al·ism
ˈnaSH(ə)nəˌlizəm/
noun
noun: nationalism
patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts.
synonyms:
patriotism, patriotic sentiment, flag-waving, xenophobia, chauvinism, jingoism"their extreme nationalism was frightening"
an extreme form of this, especially marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries.
plural noun: nationalisms
advocacy of political independence for a particular country.
Now we know what the Republican health insurance plan looks like. This politician just gave the reporter a pre-existing condition! lol Ha! Ha!
"Republican Greg Gianforte wins Montana special election, CNN projects"
By Lauren Fox, CNN, Updated 10:03 AM ET, Fri May 26, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/25/politics/montana-special-election-results/
"Bozeman, Montana (CNN)Republican Greg Gianforte has won the special election for Montana's open US House seat, CNN projects, defeating Democrat Rob Quist and capping off a whirlwind final 36 hours of the campaign that saw Gianforte being charged for allegedly assaulting a reporter. "
What does the physical, REAL [even a Fox News witness stated on TV this man attacked the reporter and body slammed him into the floor, then choked the guy] attack on a reporter say about this man? Do we really want this kind of person governing? I guess his voters do. TRIBALISM.
Gianforte apologized, saying that is not the person I am. Gianforte apologized at his after election win, but all his supporters seemed all too happy for what he did, not what he was saying. TRIBALISM. We care more about our political ideology than we do about having a country, and America is suffering for this tribalism.
"America 2.0: The Threat of Neotribalism"
Over a year ago [maybe 2016?]
by Jason Gots
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-threat-of-neotribalism
"This "us vs. them" mentality doesn't reflect the best of America, past or present, says author and essayist Marilynne Robinson, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer prize in Fiction for her novel Gilead. Robinson has traveled widely in the country, and is continually impressed with the resilience and dynamism of America - its ability to assimilate and engage with new ideas and unfamiliar ways of being. "
More . . . this evolution is not entirely new, however . . .
"What's the Significance?
What's different now is that the explosion of specialized, targeted cable channels, websites, subReddits and social networks has created unprecedented opportunities for cultural cross-pollination, and also for walling ourselves up in some subcultural dungeon, listening endlessly to echoes of what we already believe. "
"We’re at a crossroads, says Robinson, and we’ve got big choices to make as a nation. Choices that will determine the political and cultural character of America 2.0. Robinson knows her American history, and it has taught her to be optimistic about America’s ability to struggle through dark times and reinvent itself for the better. "
"The New Tribalism and the Decline of the Nation State"
Robert Reich, Sunday, March 23, 2014
http://robertreich.org/post/80522686347
"Before the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them. Kings and emperors imposed temporary truces, at most.
But in the past three hundred years the idea of nationhood took root in most of the world."
More . . .
"And what about America? The world’s “melting pot” is changing color. Between the 2000 and 2010 census the share of the U.S. population calling itself white dropped from 69 to 64 percent, and more than half of the nation’s population growth came from Hispanics.
It’s also becoming more divided by economic class. Increasingly, the rich seem to inhabit a different country than the rest.
But America’s new tribalism can be seen most distinctly in its politics. Nowadays the members of one tribe (calling themselves liberals, progressives, and Democrats) hold sharply different views and values than the members of the other (conservatives, Tea Partiers, and Republicans).
Each tribe has contrasting ideas about rights and freedoms (for liberals, reproductive rights and equal marriage rights; for conservatives, the right to own a gun and do what you want with your property)."
More . . .
"Each tribe is headed by rival warlords whose fighting has almost brought the national government in Washington to a halt. Increasingly, the two tribes live separately in their own regions – blue or red state, coastal or mid-section, urban or rural – with state or local governments reflecting their contrasting values.
I’m not making a claim of moral equivalence. Personally, I think the Republican right has gone off the deep end, and if polls are to be believed a majority of Americans agree with me.
But the fact is, the two tribes are pulling America apart, often putting tribal goals over the national interest – which is not that different from what’s happening in the rest of the world."
But what of other opinions? What about nationalism? Here is one person's thoughts.
"Column: Why populism, nationalism, and tribalism will outlast Trump and Clinton"
BY: Matthew Continetti
September 30, 2016 5:00 am
http://freebeacon.com/columns/the-politics-of-dissociation/
"What’s a "globalist"? They are, according to the Times, the "advocates of a more densely enmeshed world," "concerned internationalists," "humanitarians, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, donors, investors, app peddlers, celebrities," a caste of managers, bureaucrats, apparatchiks, media figures, and billionaires working across borders to solve problems such as climate change, the Syrian refugee crisis, Third-World poverty, racial and sexual injustice, and interplanetary colonization. They are the busybody winners of the knowledge economy. And they are feeling glum.
The project of global integration—the free movement of capital, goods, and people for the improvement of man’s estate as defined by the postmodern West—is at a standstill. The nationalist governments of Russia and China subvert world order. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is in limbo. The Brits voted to leave the European Union. Europeans have turned on Brussels. There is this annoying issue of political Islam. Above all there is Donald Trump, the man who made "globalist" an epithet."
I do not agree with this fellow, but that is just me. I have 44 years working in DoD so maybe that makes my thinking obsolete? Or does it? I might know the history I lived better than the future this guy foresees.
"Marini refers to institutions such as the family, church, and school, institutions charged with forming the character of a citizen, of instructing him in codes of morality and service, in the traditions and history of his country, in the case of the church directing him spiritually and providing him a definitive account of the cause and purpose of life. These are precisely the institutions that have been brought under the sway of bureaucracies and courts heavily insulated from elections, from public opinion, from majority rule. And as the public has lost authority over decision-making in the private sphere, as the culture has become more alien, more bewildering, more hostile to "the old morality," as President Clinton keeps saying rather fatuously that the fates of Kenya and Kentucky are linked, is it any wonder voters have sought out a vehicle for their disgust and opposition?
What should worry the "globalists" of every party is that this revolt is not an aberration from our current trajectory but parallel to it. The forces animating Donald Trump will persist so long as Bill Clinton and friends insulate themselves, their families, and their government from the unvarnished, intemperate, uncouth, and entirely legitimate grievances of the people."
The unvarnished truth is that kindness and wisdom ARE POSSIBLE, and can cohabitate, notwithstanding the challenges of the world we live in today. Tribalism and populism do not have to win out over a more caring, spiritual people, the original American Dream, in a UNITED States of America.
