A rise in tribalism leaves some politicians in the margins

Republican presidential candidate Mark Sanford on Friday shared a story about a recent campaign visit with an Iowa farmer, whom he had hoped to persuade to consider him for president.

The farmer wasn’t buying what Sanford was selling, asking him repeatedly, “Are you for or against Trump?” Sanford recalled. 

Then, “he turns to me, and he goes, ‘Look, here’s the bottom line. Do I worry about the national debt? Yes, it’s clearly a big problem, but you know, the president said he’s going to send a manned flight to Mars. I believe that they’re going to discover moon rocks on Mars that are worth more than gold. We will bring those back to the country and we’re going to be able to pay the national debt off with moon rocks from Mars.’”

Sanford, a former South Carolina governor and congressman, was speaking before a crowd of 250 USC alumni, faculty and students at “The Dis-United States: Tribalism in American Politics.” The conference, hosted by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ Center for the Political Future, took place Sept. 27 on the University Park campus.

Center Director Bob Shrum and Co-director Mike Murphy led the daylong event, inviting experts, journalists and political leaders like Sanford to discuss how tribalism has divided the country both in politics between conservatives and liberals and in the media.

Sanford, who had announced his candidacy two weeks ago, told the audience why he is so concerned about the state of American politics.

Sanford noted that the farmer may be one extreme case, but he said he believes tribalism in American politics has reached a “scary point.”

“I would argue that tribalism is on steroids now in large part because of economics,” Sanford told Murphy.

“One of the keys to the American dream was that it was a fair system. The harder you worked, the luckier you got,” Sanford said. “So, you had this truck driver married to the school teacher and they made extraordinary sacrifices so that junior might be able to go to a school as esteemed as this one. 

“And now they were saying, ‘I don’t know that that’s true.’”

Financial insecurity can prompt people to look for a strong leader — someone like Trump, Sanford said.

Murphy said the Democratic Party, at least on its Democratic National Committee website, seems focused on connecting with certain groups of voters, such as minority groups and union members, while the Republican National Committee site highlights shared values and principles, such as the constitution.

“My inclination is this obsession with ‘groupism’ makes things much worse and helps divide assault and tribalism,” said Murphy, a former Republican strategist.

“What’s your take, having been on the front lines of this?” Murphy asked Sanford. 

From right to left, Kambiz “Kamy” Akhavan of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future; Ron Christie, a political analyst and former special assistant to President George W. Bush; USC Dornsife Professor Alison Dundes Renteln; author Stevan Hobfoll; and USC Dornsife Assistant Professor (Research) Jonas Kaplan discuss “The Roots and Impact of Political Tribalism.”

“It makes it worse,” Sanford says. “And that’s the bigger question of sort of why I’m running. I think we need to have a conversation as Republicans on what it indeed means to be Republican. If we’re about ideas and ideals, we have some level of hope.”

Sanford said he sees glimmers of hope among some voters. At a recent University of South Carolina football game, some fans told him that the state’s Republican Party should not have shut down the GOP primary in South Carolina. Three other states also had cancelled their Republican primaries — Arizona, Kansas and Nevada — shutting out Sanford and two other Republican challengers, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and conservative radio personality Joe Walsh.

Sanford described the challenges he faces reaching Trump voters and, amid that, a sense of marginalization within his own party. Earlier in the conference, another conservative Republican, Ron Christie, shared similar sentiments, but from a slightly different perspective.

Christie suggested that tribalism is worsening amid an increased fixation on identifying people with particular groups, including by race.

Christie, a Republican strategist who worked in the White House for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, said he does not match the average profile of an African American voter. He is often criticized by Democrats in the African American community for his party affiliation.

“But I’m not a hyphen,” he said. “I’m a Californian first.”

Political and psychology experts on Friday considered questions about the origins of the human tendency toward tribalism, hypothesizing that it could be genetic, but USC Dornsife Professor of Political Science Alison Dundes Renteln said she doesn’t believe so.

“And I’m not sure if it matters. What matters is that tribalism is a force now in American politics,” said Renteln, who also is professor of anthropology and law. “We need to think about solutions. We need to talk about the politics of fear and resentment and find ways to bring people together around common values.”

Jonas Kaplan, assistant professor (research) of psychology at USC Dornsife’s Brain and Creativity Institute, has been studying how people behave when their beliefs — political or religious — are challenged. Their brain activity, recorded by MRI scans, indicates that they are defensive and responding to a threat.

However, that doesn’t mean people are stuck in their beliefs. The brain is flexible, he said, and they can, through mindfulness, train their minds to be open to other ideas. They also could pick another tribe, he said, but that carries some risks.

After his studies on beliefs received extensive media attention in 2016, Kaplan received a call from a man who was a conservative who had turned liberal.

“He ended up losing all of his friends, his social groups,” Kaplan said. “To change your beliefs, means you have to change everything about your life. He had to change his partner, his friends, his job. It’s just too much of a price to pay for some individuals.”