Comment by protocolture
Comment by protocolture a day ago
I think it refers to people, who I have run into quite a lot, who when faced with a new fact about politics or the behaviour of politicians, back the team over the idea.
Like if you were to say consider yourself a progressive. I would consider you a progressive, unless you for instance, supported something incredibly conservative that was performed by a "Good Guy" politician on your team.
For instance, we used to have this chap Daniel Andrews. Who was for better or worse, a mild progressive. He took a very hard stance on Covid related issues. Progressives, backed the man regardless. Conservatives criticised his every move. However, his own human rights review, found that he had violated the human rights of citizens in certain circumstances.
If you mention this to his critics, it reinforces their team. But if you mention this (incredibly obvious good faith criticism) to his supporters, not only does it reinforce their team, but they immediately seek to identify you as someone on the other team. A "crazy anti lockdown conservative" or similar. - That for me is the essence of tribalism.
To be fair I think this is a symptom of social media rather than just political awareness.
I've seen another example over the last few days.
Quite a few people who have been vociferously pro-EU and in favour of their protectionism, tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers have been going crazy over the US imposing tariffs, even though the US rates are far lower than the EU's.
A similar group has historically been strongly against government corruption but recently have been attacking efforts to uncover and stop corruption in the US Federal government.