http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fox_news_tribeThe Fox News Tribe
More than ever, conservatives are working to cast liberals as the other.
Paul Waldman | April 13, 2010 | web only
If you watch cable news, you probably know the story of Jack Cassell, the Florida doctor who demonstrated his displeasure with the recently passed health-care reform by posting a sign on his office door reading, "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere." Never mind that Cassell knew nothing of what was in the bill: This was a policy so abominable that he could no longer associate in a professional capacity with anyone who had voted for a politician he didn't like.
I doubt that very many doctors will begin partisan practices. Yet
if there is a common strain running through the unusually vituperative debates of the Obama presidency, it's that the opposition becomes intensely tribal in short order. We could be talking about health care, economic policy, or a Supreme Court nomination, and before long, conservatives will be arguing not just that the administration and its supporters are wrong but that they are the Other -- an alien group with whom there can be no compromise.snip//
The figure currently defining the Republican ethos -- Sarah Palin -- is the ultimate tribal politician.
The media, the elites, the liberals, the urbanites -- the Other is all around us in Palin's world, and she is eager to spin the cycle of resentment. She may hail from the northernmost American state, but her party has become increasingly of, by, and for angry Southern whites. No other region is so invested in the idea that it is different than, and aggrieved by, the rest of the country -- and so consumed with its own victimhood. We got another reminder of that when Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia declared April "Confederate History Month" without mentioning slavery. McDonnell's initial defense of the omission was that he was focusing on the aspects of the Confederacy that he "thought were most significant for Virginia." Or some Virginians, anyway. (Within a few days, McDonnell reversed himself.)
Tribalism comes in many flavors, some uglier than others. This has been the dilemma of the Tea Party movement, which for all its talk about taxes and the size of government, is nothing if not a tribal uprising. When its face gets screwed into a snarl -- as it did on the day health reform passed, with protestors spewing racial epithets at black members of Congress, and one Republican congressman telling protesters, "Let's beat that other side to a pulp! Let's take them out! Let's chase them down!" -- conservatives with cooler heads get nervous. They insist that what we see is an aberration, that most participants in this unruly movement are simply concerned Americans who love all their fellow citizens and hate only taxes and government -- all as influential conservative voices continue stoking the fire.
It would be naive to think that one day our politics will resemble some sort of Athenian fantasy in which every citizen deliberates carefully and respectfully about public issues before rendering well-considered decisions. But is it too much to ask that we stop short of concluding that those who disagree with us must be our enemies, so alien and threatening that we wouldn't even want to admit that they too are Americans? (Or, in the case of Dr. Cassell, give them a prostate exam?)
It may well be. Congress could be taking up immigration reform soon. And if you think the tribalism has been ugly up until now, just you wait.