9/12/01… The Day Tribalism Didn’t Exist

9/12/01… The day Tribalism didn’t exist

I grew up an LSU fan and a N.O. Saints fan. They were my teams. Even when the Saints were bad, they were my team. I pulled for them when they were bad, terrible, when players got in trouble. It didn’t matter. I pulled for them every Sunday. When they were wearing bags on their heads, I was pulling for them. Unfortunately, we’ve decided as a nation to join a fan club of one of two teams, Donkey or Elephant, and love them no matter what…except they don’t really care about you, just your vote. And it’s not a football game, it’s life.

Let’s play our own game. I’ll give you four quotes. Then I’ll give you four political leaders. You match them up without using any help, such as google. Then see if you’re correct. The answers will be at the bottom of this article so don’t cheat. Give it your best shot. Think about what you think each leader has said and guess accordingly.

A. “Freedom is secured every day by our men and women in uniform. We must build a future worthy of their sacrifice.”

B. “No dream is too big, no challenge is too great. Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach.”

C. “Facts are stupid things.”

D. “I’ve now been in 57 states, one left to go.”

1. President Obama
2. President Reagan
3. Nancy Pelosi
4. President Trump

Read on to see how you did.

Over time, our society has grown in to this dark, blinded place where we accept anything and everything that is delivered by our “team”, no matter if it’s factual or not. We just accept it. We gravitate towards the emotion of anger and betrayal long before the emotion of love and understanding. We, somehow, completely forget that we’re Americans first. We forget about that inherent good nature of our fellow Americans. This is partly due to the media only showing us the extreme situations… because it’s news. Good people acting normal and having civil discussions are simply not news stories. So we’re never going to see that in the news.

The recent story of the catholic school boys and the Native American is a perfect example. The first story that hits is that the boys are taunting and antagonizing the Indian gentleman, Nathan Stanard-also known as Phillips (I choose to call him by the name he used to enlist in to the military). Everyone on the elephant team says, “he did nothing wrong!” Everyone on the donkey team says “punch the smirk off his face!” One story, from one camera and one very unreliable news source comes out. No one knows the facts yet, but their team is under attack. Then the facts come out. Turns out, Mr. Stanard was first attempting to get between the Black Hebrew Israelites and the boys. He then began walking towards the kids and began beating the drum in the face of one of the boys. When that particular boy wouldn’t move out of the way of Mr. Stanard, the incident took form. We now know that there were no ill words spoken by any of the boys. None spoken by Mr. Stanard either. Only the foul language and hate-filled words by the BHI, who appeared nowhere in the first version of the story. We also now know that Mr. Stanard was NOT a Vietnam War veteran as was originally claimed. So now with all the facts, we should be able to properly assess what went right and what went wrong. But there’s two huge problems.

The first problem is that we ran to judgment in the first place without researching facts. That’s the biggest problem we face as a nation. Delivering opinions soaked in vitriol without even knowing what the facts are. Someone attacked our team so we must defend. Our team leader said our bunker and even our name was under attack. So let’s attack back before they get too loud. We’ve subscribed to the notion that our team is right, regardless of the facts. That’s a GINORMOUS problem!

The second problem could be viewed as worse. After the facts come out, we either ignore them or we’re so angry from what we first believed that we continue to spew hate towards “the other team” anyway. Facts are just that. Facts. They don’t have emotions tied to them. Ben Shapiro says “facts don’t care about your feelings.” And he’s right. We cannot simply ignore the facts in order to justify our feelings about something. This is a problem on BOTH sides. Neither is better than the other.

As a self-proclaimed Republicratitarian (yes that’s a combination of 3 political parties), I’m urging you towards a revolution. One that requires you to be honest with the facts. If you are typically conservative, then don’t give Trump a pass when he says stupid things just because he represents your team. Don’t give conservative leaders and commentaries a free pass when they are wrong. If they are wrong, then they should be called wrong. If you are typically liberal, then call the liberal leaders out when they are wrong. Don’t give Maxine Waters a free pass when she’s clearly inciting violence. My request is that we stop blindly following a “team” and start looking at our fellow Americans as Americans and not just on a “team”. Start calling foolish rhetoric foolish, regardless of which team it came from.

One thing I’ve learned about all of this over time is that, if we really step back and look, we all want the same thing. We simply have different fundamental ideas of how to get there. Some think the government is the answer, some don’t. Some think all religions should be allowed. Some think none should be allowed. Some believe more laws are the answer to certain problems, some don’t. But what we all want is usually fundamentally the same. A thriving, peaceful country where people take care of each other and flourish in a healthy economy. No one would argue that. But we seem to argue how to get there as if someone slapped our child in the face. It’s just policies. Some work. Some don’t. It’s ok to disagree. Recently a coach told me what he saw in a play and I told him I disagreed. He said, “Then you and I can agree to disagree.” I responded, “That’s why I have so much respect for you. Because of that statement.” It’s possible to get back to that, but it’s going to take work… starting with the man in the mirror. What would that look like…?

Remember the day after 9/11? Remember how there were no Republicans, Democrats, LGBTQ, Pretty people, ugly people, rich people, poor people…NONE of that existed on 911. We were defined by one thing that day. We were ALL AMERICANS. Nothing more and definitely nothing less. On 9/12/01, the entire country came together. People were hugging strangers at random. There were virtually no fights on subways. Random acts of kindness were rampant that day. Churches that Sunday were overfilled everywhere. No one cared who won in football. The only thing that mattered was that we were Americans and that we were not going to let this tear us down as a nation. We were going to stand together no matter which “team” you were on. We were Americans and Americans don’t back down.

I’m fully convinced that if you knew how little your “team leaders” thought about your actual well-being, you’d be less inclined to just follow what they say and defend them without facts. Leave your current team and go home, look at your family and choose to protect and love the only team that matters.

A. 3

B. 4

C. 2

D. 1

How did your “team” do? Two of those leaders are known as eloquent speakers (Obama and Reagan) and two are known for bizarre rhetoric (Pelosi and Trump). You just never know.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger