After the fiasco of January 6 and the semi-fiasco of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), some people like Jackie Gingrich Cushman are calling for moderation. Even Robert Stacy McCain is wondering “Why is tribalism in America now asserting itself in such toxic and ferocious ways?”

Do I have to spell it out? Politics is tribalism, always has been and always will be. The only question is whether my tribe beats your tribe.

What do you think the notion of Allyism is about? There is the tribe of helpless “oppressed peoples,” then there the tribe of noble woke “allies,” and together they will cancel the hated tribe of “white oppressors” who are Literally Nazis.

Who came up with this fake Ally idea? Doesn’t matter. All politics is “fake tribalism.”

For instance, America’s Blacks -- once "black" and then "African American" -- are descended from a whole bunch of tribes in western Africa. Each individual Black got enslaved by some inter-tribal incident of conquest slavery and only then sold to a white European slave trader. Yet now, we are told by our betters, all Blacks belong to one race -- except that race is a social construct. Anyway, if you disagree with any American liberal on race you are a "racist." Barack Obama, son of a white mother and a well-born East African, raised by his white grandparents, is America's First Black President. So there, racist.

Do you get it? This whole race-gender-identity thing is nothing but “fake tribalism,” the cunning creation of political activists who want power.

It’s worse than that. According to anthropologist C.R. Hallpike in How We Got Here tribalism has always been fake. It started when humans started living in large villages exceeding 2,500 inhabitants, and formed into tribes to protect themselves from the other tribes -- in the village!

Just as Rep. Sandy O, daughter of an architect, protects the tribe of Puerto Ricans in New York City from the white supremacists, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, scion of a lighthouse bureaucrat, protects the tribe of Somalis in Minneapolis from Minnesota nice.

You know what? I bet that if Ocasio-Cortez and her tribe were back in Puerto Rico, her loyal voters would sneer at her as a privileged aristocrat. But in the U.S. we immigrants gotta stick together, like the Irish and the Italians once did.

Say after me: all tribalism is “fake tribalism.” But if you want to play politics, you have to master the martial art of “fake tribalism.” Boy, do our liberal friends lust after the black belt in “fake tribalism.”

And we can play at that game. We just had a lesson from Professor Donald Trump and his MAGA 101 course. Let’s up our game by adaptation of the Ally Three Layer concept:

I say: America consists of Americans, Emerging Americans, and Anti-Americans.

Today’s America is the greatest country in the world, and the American people are the best people in the world. Most of us are straight-up Americans: we go to work, we obey the law, we follow the rules. And we thrive in the best country in the world. Go ’Muricans!

But some Americans, the “Emerging Americans,” are not so sure about America. They have heard tell that the suburbs of America are teeming with racists and sexists, human werewolves and the like, that wish them harm. But we Americans say to the Emerging Americans: come on in: the water’s fine and the membership is open to all that came here legally.

Then there are the “Anti-Americans.” Hoo boy. They hate America; they despise ordinary Americans -- on a good day -- as “bitter-clingers” and “deplorables.” On an average day they are inventing corrupt Jobs for Gentry programs like climate change, the great reset, critical race theory and 1619 Projects. On a bad day they hate ordinary Americans as racist-sexist-homophobes. And they lie to Emerging Americans, telling them that they are doomed unless they hunker down in their identity-politics enclaves. So there you have it: the Anti-American politics of Hate and The Big Lie. Why, that is Literally Hitler!

Of course, the three tribes I have made up out of thin air -- Americans, Emerging Americans, and Anti-Americans -- are totally fake. Just like the “oppressed peoples, allies, and white oppressors” of Allyism. Just like the idea that the various peoples from West Africa are Blacks. Just like Marx’s three tribes of bourgeois, proletarians, and Communists. Fake, Fake, Fake!

But that is how politics is played. That is how our liberal friends play it; that is how Donald Trump was teaching us to play it; and that is how we must play it.

Do you see how liberating this “fake tribalism” idea is? It is all rubbish. But humans demand a Story, a Narrative. So step right and get yer Narrative right here!

Don’t like it? I don’t either. But, as Thomas Paine said: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

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