I've always found Thomas Friedman to have a rather "flat" view of the world -- he has been driving in the left ditch for so long that anything but the view from that ditch seems "insane" to him. I found this paragraph to be completely telling ...
This also feels worse than the divisions over Vietnam and civil rights because there were three huge forces holding us together back then that are missing today: a growing middle class, the Cold War and a sane Republican Party.Well, no ... The NY Times of that day thought Goldwater was definitely INsane, and naturally they were happy -- they held giant majorities in Congress, had the White House, and a SCOTUS that was headed to make baby killing a liberal sacrament! They didn't like Republicans then either -- they were just certain that the left was WINNING as they have been up to Trump! (with a little time for self-reflection under Reagan, and then Gingerich)
As the article makes clear, "The Party" (TP-D) feels strongly that the only viable "solution" is unconditional surrender of anyone that doesn't align with their views 100%. To whit, the comment on Kavenaugh:
And nothing is sacred. Brett Kavanaugh defended himself the other day with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and ugly conspiracy theories that you’d expect only from a talk radio host — never from a would-be justice of the Supreme Court. Who can expect fairness from him now?Even the generally far left "Politifact" finds the supposedly "worst" of the Kavenaugh statement to be very questionable as being as "politically biased" as the NY Times, TP, and the general TP media want to make it to be. "What goes around DOES eventually come around" -- it is a matter of faith in pretty much all religions, karma in Bhuddism, reap what you sow" in Christianity.
Maybe the most ironic thing though is that since we have religious wiring in our brains, it is actually impossible for humans to have "nothing sacred". Throw out God, and the positions of your own tribe become "sacred" ... so he is wrong on that as well.
So we have become Tribal, and who is to blame? Surprise surprise, only the "right"!
It would be easy to blame both sides equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, but it is just not true. After the end of the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics were introduced by Newt Gingrich when he came to Congress 40 years ago,” and then perfected by Mitch McConnell during the Barack Obama presidency, when McConnell declared his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate caucus to make Obama fail as a strategy for getting Republicans back in power.Yea, right. Watergate was tribal, the attacks on Reagan were tribal, Borking was tribal, Clarence Thomas confirmation was tribal, Plame was tribal and Kavenaugh as well as the whole "resistance" is totally transparently tribal.
It may be accurate to say that Newt gave the D's some pause when congress went back to Republican hands for the first time in 50 years in '94, but only in the mind of the left is the opposition winning an election something that has to be treated as a social crisis!
BTW, McConnell made his statement during the runup to the 2010 midterms, NOT "at the start of BO's first term as D's, BO himself and the media (but I repeat myself) continually lie to us about. When you are the dominant party, lying is quite effective, since most people don't catch you at it. Good thing we aren't hearing any D's or media talk about trying to make Trump a failure if they can win the midterms, right? That would be the same as McConnel's supposed egregious tribal sin! Talk about #fakemedia!
The roots of Tribalism go back at least to the early 1900s, when "progressiveism", scientism and historicism took over from Christian escatology as the "right side of history", and the idea of respecting a written Constitution became dangerously reactionary from the POV of "Progressives".
As this secular faith become the power based faith of the intelligencia, things like "love your neighbor", "the golden rule", "love your enemies", "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God" were replaced by faith in science and the doctrine above. Once Christianity was a transcendent faith shared by something like 80-90% of the population -- simple belief in the Golden Rule would have ruled out the Kavenaugh debacle. Nobody would want what was done to Kavenaugh to be done to themselves or those they love.
Oh, you think they were concerned about Ford? Notice the news lately?
There is still a spark of remaining Christian values on the right, but yes, Trump is certainly evidence that tribalism is winning on the right as well as the left. In human terms, tribalism is VERY sane -- it is completely natural. Do all you can so that your tribe wins and if possible exterminate the other tribe -- they are "evil and insane" after all!
Chrisianity on the other hand is "crazy" in human terms -- love even your enemies is positively INhuman! In fact, as we are finding out now, even kindness to your neighbor if they are not completely of your tribe is insane to the human mind. Might is right, your tribe is always right, and the OTHER tribe is completely insane -- that is human "wisdom" as preached by Friedman.
"Sanity" is definitely in the eye of the beholder -- in the tribal world, Friedman is correct that "Republicans are insane" from his POV. Clearly Trump finds Democrats to be insane. As we descend away from the transcendent truth of Christianity, sanity will be defined in human tribal terms and the only way to be "sane" and survive as a tribe is to WIN BABY WIN!
Welcome to the world without Christ -- a world where the other side can be given no quarter and must be destroyed -- as Hillary says:
“You cannot be civil with a political party,” she explained, “that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” She added that if Democrats retake a house of Congress, well, then, “that’s when civility can start again.I suspect that Friedman agrees -- as long as the left is in power, they will be certain to operate with THEIR brand of "civility"! TRIBAL "civilty" -- we win, and we exterminate you if we can. Perfectly sane in the natural world, "Red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson)
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