KEY #16: Tribalism works against us ... but can it work for us?
Tribalism works against us ... but can it work for us?
Okay, so from last time we know tribalism is working against us, but also, it isn't everything. Maybe we can work around tribalism.
• Situational conservatism
A few years ago I had a great conversation at a Starbucks in Phoenix with a man who identified himself right up front as a conservative: "I'm a conservative." But as we talked, conservatism never came up, and you could talk with him for an hour without guessing how he defined his own politics.
He is a military veteran who has received inadequate care for a head injury he suffered in the service. (One effect of his injury is that he'll talk for an hour and barely stop.) He previously lived in Eugene, Oregon, but moved to Arizona to — get this — help his vegan lesbian daughter raise her and her wife's son. None of this was weird to him.
In fact, the thing that he said really pushed him more conservative was being in a liberal college town where young people accused him of having "white privilege." That hurt. He rather justifiably feels like he doesn't have a lot of privilege — he's dealing with his own hardships.
Importantly for us right now, this is an example of pushing somebody's "tribal" buttons.
• Triggering
Take a look at the picture above. That's kind of how aggrieved Trump people see their lives in America.
To find out more, researchers at Purdue University tested what happens when we think about our own ethnic group in opposition to others.
They gave some of their subjects information about the declining proportion of white people in the American population, and the forecast for when white people will not be a majority in the US. (This replicates an experiment done by Fox News on your grandparents since the beginning of the Obama administration.)
White people who were primed in this way were much more likely to feel threatened as a group and to view minorities with anger and fear. This explains why the right, every single day, attacks immigrants — because it primes their voters.
The clearest lesson for Democrats is: Don't prime their voters! Don't talk to adversarial groups by identifying their groups. Don't put the word in their heads. It only makes them conscious that (1) they're on the opposite side of the fence from you, and (2) a bunch of people unlike them are threatening their tribe from the other side of the fence. Their thinking will follow that trajectory.
Takeaway: Do not trigger tribal identification.
• Redefine the "we"
Here's a takeaway that I included in the newsletter back in 2018:
Takeaway: People have many tribes. Access a different tribe.
But that's actually really complicated because, as I mentioned last time, tribalism operates very differently on the right and the left. The right is one tribe; the left is many. The right is all, "Fuck Joe Biden" and "Fuck your feelings." The left is all, "Love all kinds of people equally." Some of us are fighting textbook bans and others are fighting immigrant detention and others are fighting for equal pay, and these groups don't help each other. The All People Tribe is too big and the My People Tribe is too small.
Political scientist Lilliana Mason published a great book in 2018 called "Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity," and it concisely explains why we're like this.
There's a big difference between people with unified identities and what Mason calls "cross-cutting" identities. What does that mean? It means that people whose identities all conform to the norm for their tribe tend to be more intolerant of outsiders; those with several different identities tend to be more tolerant of outsiders. Mason writes: "An Irish-Jewish person will feel closer to non-Irish people than an Irish-Catholic person will."
Imagine a fundamentalist Christian who owns a ranch and a pickup truck and guns. We know exactly who that person is — his identities are aligned. But imagine he has a son who plays high-school football, goes into the military — but is gay. His identities are not aligned — they are cross-cutting. His orientation in life is going to be more complex than his father's. It has not been lost on me how many of Trump's defectors from the intellectual right are also members of some other tribe — gay, Jewish or immigrant. That's no accident.
The best advice for dealing with the tribalism problem is something that psychologist Drew Westen wrote: "Redefine the 'we.' " We've said, "Don't trigger tribal identification" — but can we trigger cross-cutting identities? If I hear, "I vote Republican because I'm a Christian," I'd like to say, "Okay, I guess you don't need your Social Security, and that's your choice."
There's more to say about identity and tribalism. What I called "the tribalism problem" isn't only a problem for us! More next week.
Takeaway Toteboard
- KEY #1: Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Swarthmore. (Feb. 23):
• Democrats run an intellectual campaign to voters who are emotional creatures.
• Instead of running an intellectual campaign, we need to use our intellect to create an emotional campaign.
- KEY #2: What does the Democrats’ hat say? (Feb. 26)
• The Republicans’ philosophy fits on a hat. Democrats don’t have one.
- KEY #3: Love isn’t rational. (Feb 28):
• Politics is emotion.
• If you find yourself trying to argue intellectually, stop! Find the emotional argument.
- KEY #4: You’re an animal! (March 1):
• Our attitudes come from our identity.
• You are speaking to the voter's animal brain.
- KEY #5: Don’t take away my _____! (March 4):
• Don't get into a fight with people's way of life.
• When you talk about change, find the “win.”
- KEY #6: You are this boy and life is this marshmallow. (March 6):
• Find ways to affirm people's way of life.
• Don’t just campaign; build community.
- KEY #7: Motivated reasoning (aka “Remember this friggin guy?”) (March 8):
• People believe what they need to believe.
- KEY #8: How your head keeps from exploding (March 11):
• People experiencing cognitive dissonance want an alternative narrative to make it better.
• Do not engage with your opponent’s alternative narrative.
- KEY #9: Lalalalalalalala, I'm not listening! (March 13):
• People don't hear information that conflicts with their opinions.
• Misinformation stays in people's heads. (And trying to correct it doesn't work well.)
• Don't respond to attacks by repeating the same attacks in your own language.
- KEY #10: Maybe there’s hope for people (March 15):
• Get out ahead of charges with your own framing.
• Correct misinformation fast.
• Let people know when they're about to hear something untrue.
• Undermine the source.
• Reframe, don’t repeat.
- KEY #11: The first rule of debate club is … (March 18):
• Arguing with people doesn't change their minds.
- KEY #12: Today’s the day we talk about The Key (March 20):
• Make people feel non-threatened by your approach.
• People can change their minds if they can keep their own identity.
- KEY #13: If you steal one idea from me this year, let it be ... (March 22):
• Start by affirming the other person’s identity.
• Create an identity-consistent "path" that leads the voter in the direction you want.
• Create an "offramp" for uncomfortable Republicans.
• The campaign is inside their heads, not yours.
• Use your intelligence not to make an intellectual argument but to make a psychological argument.
- KEY #14: That time we got it wrong (March 25):
• Don’t attack people who are changing.
- KEY #15: Yes, we clan! (March 27):
• Do not get into a fight with someone's tribe.
- KEY #16: Tribalism works against us ... but can it work for us? (March 29):
• Do not trigger tribal identification.
• People have many tribes. Access a different tribe.