alt Hacker News> The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
It's not about where you are on the spectrum. I know neoliberal moderate Democrats, people who would have voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988, who are more tribal about current U.S. politics than any socialist I've met. What makes it unpleasant to talk politics with them is a combination of two things: the narrow set of answers they're willing to accept on every topic, and the anger and suspicion they broadcast at anyone who says anything else. For example, they have an acceptable set of answers for why Trump won in 2024 (racism and sexism) and if you suggest any other contributing factors (like arrogance, elitism, and various screw-ups in the Democratic party) then you must be on the other side, blaming the victims and making excuses for Trump supporters. You can say a dozen things morally condemning Trump and the Republican Party and then make one strategic criticism of the Democrats, and they'll look at you like maybe they can't ever trust you anymore. They'll parade their emotional distress and look at you sideways if you don't have the energy to mirror it. All this without being especially politically informed, politically engaged, or politically radical, or caring if anybody else is informed, engaged, or radical -- they judge themselves and others purely by fervor and narrowness.
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> You can say a dozen things morally condemning Trump and the Republican Party and then make one strategic criticism of the Democrats, and they'll look at you like maybe they can't ever trust you anymore.
I think some of this is a consequence of a decade or so of bad faith "wolf in sheep's clothing" online discourse.
I remember way back before Trump's first term, before GamerGate, before the alt-right when people would "joke" about racist and neonazi stuff on 4chan and elsewhere. It was framed as "We're just kidding around because it's fun to be edgy. It's ironic. Obviously, we're not really racist neonazis." People, mostly teens, took the bait and thought it was all in good fun but over time those ideas sunk in and actually stuck.
The next thing you know, we've got white supremacists parading in broad daylight.
If you poke around the dark (and these days not so dark) corners of the Internet, you can literally find people with toxic fringe beliefs discussing how to subtlely soften up their targets with seemingly innocent "just asking questions" when the ultimate goal is to (1) obscure which tribe they are actually a member of and (2) persuade people over to their tribe without them realizing it.
When you're in an environment where people like that do actually exist and participate in discourse, it's reasonable to wonder if the person you're talking to really does share your beliefs or not.
I think one of the distinguishing characteristics of tribalism is the inability to have low-stakes conversations about politics. To somebody who is deep in tribalism, every private ephemeral one-to-one conversation they have is a vital battle which very well may decide the fate of the world, so their vigilance and inflamed passion entirely justified and rational. Being a part of the tribe ruins their humility, the tribe is important, they are wed to the tribe, any political discussion they have is on behave of the tribe, and therefore very important. Alliance with the tribe confers importance to themselves and they thereby lose their humility. They lose the ability to recognize that the conversation isn't actually important, that they can relax and treat the other person like a human rather than a faceless representative of the enemy who they have a vital responsibility to defeat.
yep, this is exactly it -- it's not where you end up, it's the inability to separate from a group
there are tribalists on the left, right, and in the middle