10/16/2010
Barack Obama’s latest comment about Americans becoming "tribal" in response to bad economic times is exactly the same idea as his infamous 2008 comment about Pennsylvanians, thrown out of work by globalism:"And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."See Obama’s Contempt For Ordinary Whites — And McCain’s Inability To Defend Them By Boethius, April 14, 2008
In both cases, Obama seems to feel that the only reason people are objecting to his agenda is because they're not making enough money — if they made more money, they wouldn’t feel that way.
This is called "economism" — the belief, as John Derbyshire put it, that "mankind is a rational economic animal, seeking only to improve his material lot in life."
If this were true, there would have been all kinds of peace in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and a host of other depressing places.
But "tribalism" — voting for people who represent your own ethnic group’s interests — is not caused by poverty.
Well-to-do African-Americans voted for Obama at the same astonishing rate as poor ones — a black lawyer or executive knows that his taxes will probably go up under a Democratic administration, but he also knows that money will be spent in minority neighborhoods.
I would note that Obama has also decried tribalism in Africa, where they really have tribalism, and it’s not going away, saying
"In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage and nepotism in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is still a daily fact of life for far too many."However, in addition to Peter Brimelow’s discussion of tribalism in relation to James Webb, the most prominent American besides Obama to talk about tribalism in American politics is Patrick J. Buchanan, who wrote a column about the Tea Party movement under the title of New Tribe Rising.
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