Posted on by Grainger

9/12/2001

The Day Tribalism Didn’t Exist

This is an excerpt from my first book, “America’s Greatest Threat: America.” I’ve updated it to fit more appropriately into today’s zeitgeist.

I grew up an LSU fan and a New Orleans 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 truly do not care about you, only 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 or AI. Then see if you’re correct. You will see the answers at the end, 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 into this dark, blinded place where we accept anything and everything that is delivered by our “team”, regardless of factual efficacy. We just accept it. We gravitate towards the emotion of anger and betrayal long before the emotion of love and understanding. Here’s a smoother and more compelling rewrite:

We’ve somehow forgotten that we’re Americans first. Too often, we lose sight of the basic decency and goodwill that exists in most of our fellow citizens.

Part of the problem is that the media is built to highlight the extremes, because conflict, outrage, and division make headlines. Ordinary people treating each other with respect, helping their neighbors, or having thoughtful civil discussion simply isn’t considered newsworthy. As a result, we’re constantly shown the exceptions instead of the rule, and it distorts how we see one another.

The story of the catholic schoolboys 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 into the military). Everyone on the elephant team says, “He did nothing wrong!” Everyone on the donkey team says, “Punch that 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 are two huge problems.

  1. 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. We’ve subscribed to the notion that our team is right, regardless of the facts. That’s a GINORMOUS problem!
  2. 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. 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 or Fox News a pass when they report stupid ideology just because they represent 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.

Civilly agreeing to disagree… 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 9/11. 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. Now, let’s see how you did…

  • 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.

As we celebrate our Nation’s 250th anniversary of cessation from Great Britain, let’s try to remember that we are Americans. Let everything else fall where it may.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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