The Tribe Has Spoken

How and Why Our Nation Went to Extremes

Like many Americans, I am in despair over the deplorable state of our social and political climate.  I have always been a confirmed moderate.  Until recently, I felt about as comfortable with Democratic agendas as I did with Republican ones, often switching my vote between parties depending on the relative virtues of a particular candidate and where he or she stood on burning policy questions.

Today, however, opinions on both sides are so inflamed that the few remaining moderates like me are left hung out to dry.  American politics, as we all know, has migrated to the lunatic extremes. For both parties, political discourse has been degraded to slogans, whether “Make America Great Again” or “Defund the Police.”  To disagree with these shibboleths, or even to suggest a more nuanced view, is to invite immediate reprobation and rejection.  Rational discourse often seems impossible.

I have a rudimentary hypothesis that may help explain our society’s deep political divide. Most of these ideas are not original to me, but I have tried to assemble them in a manner that is in some way helpful (It has been helpful to me, if not reassuring.)  My hypothesis involves six forces operating in unison.

Human beings are animals.  We like to flatter ourselves that we are reasoning animals, but  reason is a thin veneer over our darker, less rational animal impulses.  The psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of a man (reason) riding an elephant (the visceral evolutionary drives of our deep brain and limbic systems.)  As long as the elephant is content, the driver can fool himself into believing he is in control.  But once the elephant panics, the rider can only hang on for dear life.  In times of high anxiety, we default to our tribal instincts: we are overwhelmed by the need to seek safety within a group of right-thinking and right-acting peers who are expected to conspicuously despise “the other” to prove their tribal creds.  It takes immense discipline (and not a little courage) to maintain one’s rational bearings.

Excentrifugal Forz: The center could not hold.  We’re a long way from the Dust Bowl and D-Day.  My parent’s generation endured two traumatic events; the Great Depression and World War II.  In the Depression, just about everyone was united in their common poverty.  During the war, just about everyone fought or worked for the war effort.  America was deeply unified both by common cause and by common trauma.  People identified above all with their country and their fellow citizens.  Our aggression was reserved for the Axis. Once the war was over, our parents did not have high expectations.  They appreciated the Levittown comfort of their post-war lives and what seemed to be the promise of a peaceful future for their kids.  Many were happy just to be intact and alive.  This all started to unravel with Vietnam, and we have been fragmenting since.

Tribalism impedes effective solutions.   Today our loyalty is not to our country, but to our chosen tribes: gun lovers, anti-abortion nuts, “Socialists,” LGBTers, feminists, pro-Trumpers, evangelicals, Black Lives Matter acolytes, white supremacists and other tribes too numerous to mention.  Obviously, these tribes overlap and some of them are more objectionable than others.  But they all provide something in common.  Abandoning loyalty to the nation and its people, we cling to these groups to give our lives meaning,  The unity of these groups is generally predicated on victimhood.  Everyone feels entitled, everyone feels “oppressed”, or at least aggrieved.  No one accepts responsibility for their own lives (unless those lives are successful.).

The internet has greatly facilitated tribal division.  Thirty years ago pathetic losers like “Incels” were too isolated to group together to inflame their delusions.   These days, any unpopular view expressed on line invites a tsunami of vituperation from “injured” parties.  Fifty years ago everyone got their facts from Walter Cronkite.  When he famously turned against the war in Vietnam, the whole nation turned with him.  Now everyone cherry picks the “facts” from the Web to confirm their own prejudices and reinforce tribal bonds.

Tribal breakdown is a not restricted to the United States.  A former official in Italy’s Renzi government named Giuliano Da Empoli has written a book titled “Les Ingenieurs du Chaos” which focuses on the rise of the Five Star Movement that now shares power in Italy.  While the book has not yet been translated into English, I have included a quote from the TLS review that may sound eerily familiar:

“ . . . critics of populism fail to gauge the extent to which the drive to humiliate and punish hubristic liberal elites – turning the tables on them, ridiculing their claims not just to authority but to authoritativeness – is at the heart of the populist promise.  The revolt against the objective truth of expertise is also linked to a search for subjective truths and a free rein given to emotion.  In his captivating opening pages, Empoli likens this thrilling inversion of the status quo to a state of “Carnival”, drawing on an idea previously proposed by David Brooks in the New York Times, who tried to make sense of Trump’s attempts to “symbolically upend hierarchy” by invoking the image of a “carnival culture” with “an ocean of sadism lurking just below the surface.” 

Race, of course, is the third rail of this entire discussion.  Race, or ethnicity, is the ultimate tribal differentiator.  I don’t believe the United States to be an inherently racist society, at least no more so than other societies.  But, as numerous psychological studies have shown, human beings are inherently racist.  Underlying Donald Trump’s popularity with white males is the perception – indeed the reality – that white voters will soon form a minority in our country.  Barak Obama was the wake up call for many on this issue.  Most of us who detest Trump do not appreciate the intensity of many folk’s hatred of Obama, by all appearances a dignified, articulate, educated family man (if not an especially good president.) 

That’s all I’m going to say on the subject of race.  For a lot more depth on this and other issues, read “Why We’re Polarized” by Ezra Klein.  I’m about halfway through and it seems very thorough and thoughtful and corroborates most of what I’ve said.  The problem with the book is that he pretty much gives the left a free pass.  For instance, he dismisses as trivial the issue of free speech repression on college campuses.  The profound anti-capitalist bias on most college campuses is driving students toward “Socialism” although few are ever taught the meaning or odious implications of that term.

Religion.  Back in the early 1980’s, evangelicals were riding high.  Held in thrall by a coterie of coiffed, tanned, pompous prophets like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart and the divine duo Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker, evangelicals were convinced that God had chosen them to lead our country out of its sinful malaise. And it certainly seemed that way.  Blessed by the almighty, their farming and energy-based communities were thriving (remember “let a Yankee freeze in the dark?”), while the debauched cities on both coasts were miasmas of crime, drugs, corruption and godlessness.  The Moral Majority had been a driving force behind the election of Ronald Reagan, who, if not religious himself, at least had a wife with faith in astrology.  Best of all, a cruel and mysterious plague was decimating the ranks of homosexuals.

But things did not turn out as prophesied for evangelicals.  Over the past four decades the carnal coastal cities have  prospered to a degree that can only be described as miraculous while the oil and ag economies are struggling.  A black man was elected president TWICE.  The opioid plague is mostly ravaging non-urban communities.  And gays can now get married! We all know that the hand of God works in mysterious ways, but this is ridiculous.

So should it really be so surprising that evangelicals swooned when a coiffed, tanned (well, oranged) blowhard emerged from the hell of New York City like the beast from Revelations, promising to Make America Great Again? Oh, Rapture!  Finally, a true prophet!  Sure Falwell, Swaggart, and Baker were frauds, but this guy’s the real deal! He says what’s on his mind! He’ll drain the swamp!  He’ll build a wall!  Jesus may have abandoned us, but Trump will put us back on top!

When Trump fizzles out, evangelicals will probably just find a new prophet.  Or, here’s a thought; they might consider doing something completely different and become Christians..

Inequality. Everyone knows that the worldwide income gap between rich and poor has widened. Wait a minute . . . . Hold the Presses.  IT JUST AIN’T SO!  In fact, world incomes have become dramatically more equal as billions of poor people have been lifted out of subsistence lives, notably in China and India. (Real per capita incomes in India have burgeoned 500% since 1980, while in China they’ve soared by a factor of ten.)  Because Socialism collapsed in 1989, one must concede that Capitalism has had much to do with this salutary trend.  Plus, this suggests that AOC and her ilk are bad Socialists.  They ought to be pleased with the success of  “The International” and not myopically focused on their own selfish political ambitions.

Less Equal Than Others

Certainly, in the United States, the gulf between rich and poor has grown over the past 40 years. The most seriously disadvantaged have been semi-skilled and low skilled workers.  To explain this inequality, I reject out of hand most of the arguments of both left and right.  Such as; immigration, elitist deep state conspiracies, government corruption, the demise of unions or the greedy 1%.

In my view, these are the key factors that together explain our wealth gap:

1. Technology is the by far the critical factor. Forty years ago, every Wall Street executive had a valued secretary – or two — who was, typically, very well paid.  Secretaries had a host of responsibilities, including typing (now done on MS Word), answering phones (now done by e-mail and text), and arranging travel with the travel agents (remember them?)  They also kept the executives in line.  It’s no coincidence that Wall Street’s ethical decline has been coterminous with the decline of the secretary.

Beyond Wall Street, examples abound of technology rendering workers redundant.  Robots replaced workers in any number of manufacturing industries.  The internet obviates the need for armies of salespeople and entire industries (like bookstores.)  As technology drives an industry to consolidate, many people lose jobs and those few highly skilled folks who remain share a greater proportion of that industry’s profits.

2.  Globalization.  That many jobs have moved offshore to less expensive labor markets is widely recognized.  This has been unfortunate for those who have lost jobs, but it has been beneficial for the country, especially anyone who shops at Wal-Mart.

3. Education.  Much of the workforce does not have the skills necessary to perform the tasks that the current economy requires.  There are hopeful signs that the younger generation may be changing this, but, when almost 50% say they prefer Socialism to Capitalism, that’s not a foregone conclusion.

Poor public education plays a role in underwriting American ignorance, but education is largely locally funded, so for the most part we get the system we want.  And, it seems, education is not valued by or – worse – is rejected by a whole lot of Americans.   How else can you explain the 60% of Americans who are unconvinced of the truth of evolution, of whom 30% believe that nothing has changed since the “creation?”  And how can you explain the 80% of Republicans who do not believe in climate change?  Denying scientific fact is not a recommended path to getting a good job these days.  In the words of Neill deGrasse Tyson, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe it or not.”

4. Marriage.  Although I don’t have good data to prove it, I believe that young folks in recent decades have been far less likely to marry (or partner-up) outside of their own socio-economic cohort.  People get married much, much later than they did in my parent’s generation. As recently as 1960, the average woman got married at age 20.  So at least half got married right out of high school. The quarterback married the prettiest cheerleader no matter what their daddies did for a living.   Today, the average woman marries at 29, and she presumably tends to pick a spouse from among her professional and educational peers.  I suspect that this makes household wealth more concentrated than in the past, and hinders the broader distribution of access to and positive attitudes toward education.

5. Timing is Everything. In the late ‘70’s my dad was head of the economics department at a small liberal arts college.  I can remember people teasing him that he could make a lot more money if he quit teaching and got a union job at the Ford assembly plant in Mahwah.  And they were right: he could have.  I believe that it is misleading to evaluate US inequality today by using 1980 as the base year, as is frequently done.

In fact, the years 1945 – 1980 were the anomaly, not the ensuing decades.  In 1945 the rest of the world’s productive capacity had been obliterated. So for the next 25 years, while the world was rebuilding, we had no competition.  American managements were smug, unions were coddled, products were expensive and shoddy.  Then came the onslaught from Germany, Japan, Korea, and eventually China with less expensive, more motivated workers and more up-to-date production facilities.  There was only one direction for semi-skilled US wages to go.

Another reason for improving equality from 1945 to 1980 was a stalled stock market.  In 1980, the Dow was no higher than it had been in 1965.  So the wealth of the richest got them nowhere.  That brings to mind an effective way to reduce today’s inequality in a jiffy.  A stock market crash of, say, 50% would do the trick.  Everyone would be worse off, but the rich would suffer most.  The Progressive dream.

Going Mobile

Many Americans believe that our society has become ossified, with a wealthy elite that jealously barricades the gates of opportunity.   Economic mobility, they say, is a thing of the past.  Headline after headline trumpets the death of the “American Dream.”

But is this true?

I believe that the facts show that the American Dream is alive and well.  A glance at the Forbes 400 list should convince anyone that social mobility remains a hallmark of our economy.  Few of the names on the list were there even 20 years ago, and many of the new entrants are from humble, or at least non-elite origins.

For the unconvinced, here is a link to a remarkable study conducted by the Harvard University’s Equality of Opportunity Project and presented by the New York Times.  The project’s website is very interesting in itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-your-own-mobility-animation.html?ref=oembed&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=08C2A9A46A363AABB2AFCE136EABFCFE&gwt=pay&assetType=PAYWALL

Using IRS data from the years 1978-1980, the study ranks households and individuals by income into 5 quadrants from “rich” (the top 20%) to “poor” (the bottom 20%.).   It further breaks down participants by gender and ethnic group.   It then looks at the incomes of the children of those families 30 years hence to evaluate movements into and out of the five income quadrants.

As it turns out, 25% of all Americans who grew up poor in 1978-80 ended up in either the first or the second quadrant (either rich or upper middle class.)  About 26% of white kids raised in poor households moved into the first or second quadrant – about average.  These data alone suggest robust economic mobility.

The really impressive results were for Asian kids.  Fully 44% of Asian kids who grew up poor in the late ‘70’s achieved upper middle class status or better (first or second quadrants), with children of first generation Asian immigrants doing especially well.  Impressively, Asian women outperformed the men.  An amazing 50% of poor Asian American women broke into the upper middle class or higher.

Not only do the Asian results suggest low barriers to advancement, they almost make one question – dare I say it —  whether American society is really as irredeemably racist and sexist as is frequently alleged.

Bear in mind that SOMEBODY has to fill the “poor” quadrant.  That’s a mathematical necessity.  The key questions are: are the living standards of poor folks adequate and are they presented with the tools necessary to move to higher quadrants.   I’m not especially concerned with the wealth of those in the first quadrant.  (Although that seems to be the progressive obsession.)

I can think of possible flaws in these data.  For instance, are the really poor kids (whose parents may not have filed tax returns) included in the base years?  Also, the numbers I have cited are for household incomes.  They are slightly different for individuals.  Still, the broad framework for the study seems valid.

But of course what I believe doesn’t matter.  Perhaps facts don’t matter. What matters is that nearly half of Americans are convinced that they are victims of a rigged, bigoted system.   Keeping things as they are is a recipe for more trouble in the future, since I see no reason why prospects will improve for low and semi-skilled labor.

On the Gallup 

In the context of what I’ve said about our animal nature and the country’s fragmentation, you will understand why I believe that this 2003 Gallup poll explains so much of what’s going on in America today.  I remember being shocked when I read it at the time.  The poll was quite simple; it asked a randomly selected group of Americans the following question:

Do you expect to be rich at some point in your lives?  (“rich” was defined as an income of $200,000 or more or assets of more than $1 million.)

Fully 30% of all Americans and 50% of those under age 30 answered “yes.”  This was not the American Dream. This was freakin’ mass psychosis.  In fact, only about 3% of the country topped those hurdles at the time.  People were not asked how they intended to achieve this wealth, and I have no indication of how a poll like this might have looked in the past.  Still, it seems like a good snapshot of how myths prevalent in 2003 helped produce the world we inhabit today.  Whereas my parent’s generation was happy simply not being at war and not living in penury, Americans today are deeply resentful about not being rich.  And, being human, we are certain that our disappointments cannot be our own fault.  Everyone believes that his birthright has been unfairly snatched by liberal elites, or racists, or intellectuals, or bankers, or immigrants, or the 1%.

For someone my age who has always believed in some kind of progress, to see the country descend into its current tribal state is profoundly dispiriting  My forebears on my mother’s side were Swedish homesteaders in Kansas.  My father’s family had a farm in upstate Pennsylvania.  I inherited from my parents a profound faith in the wisdom and dignity of the American public.  Growing up, I never had any doubt that, when pressed, Americans would always rally and do the right thing.  That faith, to say the least, has been sorely tested.