The divisiveness that's everywhere in the US political system is a feature, not a bug. By casting political problems in terms of tribal loyalty, you can get the voters in your tribe to ignore deeper problems. The deeper problems are, as always, corporate control of laws, policy and regulatory agencies. If a voter suddenly swallows a red pill and starts to see corporate corruption in government, you can always drive him to the other tribe, or shame him back into your own, and the odds are he'll go back to sleep. If you drive him to the other tribe, no harm is done, because both parties obey the same corporate overlords.
Tribalism exists to keep people from paying attention, but the solution isn't more civility, because the forces against civility are very strongly established and will destroy it to keep people distracted, so the corporate money machine can keep going unquestioned.
What we need is more scrutiny of the corporate incursions into news organizations and regulatory agencies. Have you watched the evening news lately? Did you see all those adds for pharma? Have you watched CNN or Fox? Did you see those shills for military contractors posing as authoritative commentators? Have you noticed the revolving door between the FDA and drug companies?
The focus has to be on corruption, not on civility.
Tribalism exists to keep people from paying attention, but the solution isn't more civility, because the forces against civility are very strongly established and will destroy it to keep people distracted, so the corporate money machine can keep going unquestioned.
What we need is more scrutiny of the corporate incursions into news organizations and regulatory agencies. Have you watched the evening news lately? Did you see all those adds for pharma? Have you watched CNN or Fox? Did you see those shills for military contractors posing as authoritative commentators? Have you noticed the revolving door between the FDA and drug companies?
The focus has to be on corruption, not on civility.