The Decline of Tribalism

In 2018, I had a post objecting to the description of contemporary political polarization as "tribalism."  Despite my disapproval, the term has remained popular--it appeared 74 times in the New York Times in 2019 and eight so far this year (although that is down from the peak of 119 in 2018).  This post will elaborate on my objection and give some data. 

I understand political tribalism as a tendency to support or oppose a political figure because he is or is not "one of us," without respect to his positions on political issues.  Tribalism has been a strong force in American history, but is considerably weaker than it used to be. 

To see the strength of tribalism in the past, look at the elections of 1924 and 1928.   The Republicans won both easily, 54%-29% in 1924 (with 17% going to the Progressive, Robert LaFollette), and 58%-41% in 1928.  Despite getting routed in 1924, the Democrats won all eleven southern states, as they had in most elections starting in 1880 (when blacks were effectively disenfranchised).  In 1928, they won only five southern states.  What happened?  The Democratic candidate was Al Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated by a major party.   For a lot of people in the South, that was reason enough to vote against him.  On the other hand, the Democrats carried Massachusetts and Rhode Island, two states with a lot of Catholics, for the first time in many years.   Focusing on a county with a lot of Catholics, New Haven (CT), in 1924 about 120,000 votes were cast, only 36,000 (30%) for the Democrat.  In 1928, the Democratic vote rose to 82,000 out of 164,000.  In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt won the election in a landslide, but didn't match Smith's performance in New Haven County (49.9% vs. 50.1%).  So it appears that a lot of Catholics changed their votes, or came out to vote, because a Catholic was on the ballot. 

The Catholic/Protestant divide was still important in 1960.  In April 1960, a Gallup Poll asked "if Nixon were the Republican candidate and (John) Kennedy were the Democratic candidate, which would you like to see win (the 1960 presidential election)?" 48% said Kennedy and 45% said Nixon.  It also asked "as you may know, Kennedy is a Catholic in his religion. Suppose Kennedy were not a Catholic--which man would you like to see win: (Richard) Nixon or (John) Kennedy?"  51% said Kennedy, and 40% said Nixon.  These questions were not asked to different parts of the sample--they were both asked the the whole sample, one right after the other.   That is, about 5-6% of the sample came right out and said that they would vote differently if Kennedy were not Catholic.  In October 1960, 5% said that the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic made them more in favor of him, and 19% that it made them less in favor. 

Region, especially South/non-South, also made a difference.  In 1976, Jimmy Carter seemed to gain not just in Georgia, but across the whole South.  Bill Clinton got some benefit, but not as much, in 1992.  By 2000, it didn't seem to make any difference for Al Gore.

Under some circumstances, "tribalism" can promote political polarization.  But in the United States, it generally limited it.  The Catholic with conservative views would often be a Democrat because his family had always been Democrats, while the Protestant with liberal views would often be a Republican because his family had always been Republican (an example), blurring the differences between the parties.  In the last 40 years or so, tribalism has declined and been replaced by ideology.  Of course, there are still group differences in support for the parties, but they have a clear basis in the current positions of the parties, and don't depend on the identity of the candidates.  For example, Tim Scott, the black Republican Senator from South Carolina, gets strong support from whites and not much from blacks.


[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]