Tribes

I suddenly thought today that we are, as a country, regressing to what the country was before Europeans arrived on our shores--tribes.

Pre-European America was not an idyllic place. Tribes of Native Americans (which weren't really because what we call American Indians probably crossed over the Barren Straights to settle this continent--everyone has to 'come' from somewhere) battled constantly over what humans always battle over--land and resources.

Dozens--hundreds--of tribes were here before the Vikings and Columbus and the Spanish and the Pilgrims.

And they either fought or stayed away from each other.

We have degraded into tribes here in the 21st Century.

There is the Trump Tribe--that will embrace him no matter what atrocities other tribes will object to. A large part of what we used to call Republicans are part of this tribe.

Then there are the non-Trump Republican Tribe. Many of them--Flake and McCain and others--cannot be part of the Trump Tribe. But they seem to have no way to take territory back. They seem to be dying off.

The Freedom Caucus Tribe co-exist with the Trump Tribe but want more strict adherence to 'Conservative Values' than the Trump Tribe even recognizes--since it it pragmatic, not ideological--and there will be a day of reconnecting between the two Tribes.

Then there are the two Democratic Tribes--the Sanders Tribe, and since there is yet to be another name for it, the Clinton Tribe. The first is progressive and culturally altering. The second is moderate and committed to the status quo as Democrats understand it. The 'Clinton' Tribe subscribes to it. The Sanders Tribe understands what the norm means and wants to alter it.

Then there is the Independent/libertarian/ non-affiliated Tribe. They are so far out of the tension among the other tribes they don't yet realize they are really three distinct Tribes.

Mohawk, Apache, Nakota, Chippewa, Navajo--on and on--Tribes mattered profoundly back in the day before Europeans arrived.

Now tribes matter again.

It is not a good thing.

The tribe we belong to should be the same one--Americans.

But that isn't so. And I even left out the tribes of People of Color and Asians.

It may be too hard to ever fix, unless we fix it soon.

Do what you can to fix it--please!!!