/ 论政治暴力 订阅

2017年6月14日， 詹姆斯·哈吉金森, an Illinois supporter of Bernie Sanders with a history of domestic violence, shot four people during a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, 维吉尼亚州. 受害者的名单, Louisiana congress男人。 Steve Scalise, the current House of Representatives majority whip, 和马特·米卡, 泰森食品公司的说客, were the most seriously injured. 都活了下来. Hodgkinson was killed in the ensuing shootout with police. Prompted by this event, political reporter T.A. 弗兰克 写了篇文章 名利场的蜂巢 in which he lamented the increased 部落主义, the intractable commitment to one’s own social group, on the right and left alike, 弗兰克 exhorts Americans to come together by "learning to live with what you hate, 比如枪支和堕胎, even if it means compromising on things that will never, 在我们的灵魂里, 允许妥协." In other words, go along to get along.

I am not known for combative 部落主义. 我的种族, 在经济上, and geographically diverse family and friends, as well as my penchant for international travel, I am the epitome of what Steve Bannon would call a "支持全球主义者cuck."(当然, 我也是黑人，而且, despite questions about whether there is evidence that he has used the 黑鬼, I’m sure Bannon would have only one name for me. 全球主义的运气不是.)术语 cuck, short for cuckold-conservative, questions its target’s conservative 诚意 by equating conservatism with masculinity. In Bannon’s world, a globalist is an enemy of “America First” extreme nationalism, and he is not a 真正的 男人。. 

我确实是一个全球主义者. I have long held that differences in customs, 信仰, 实践, and economic prosperity should be celebrated and shared—across national borders. But I am increasingly convinced that this only works when everyone in a community is on board. When there are some who do not wish to share in others’ differences, then those people have opted out of community. This does not mean that those who do champion tolerance are tribalists.

Let’s 说 someone—I will call her Sally—chooses to leave the temple of Mammon (or Wall Street) for an off-the-grid commune in which she grows her own food and spurns capitalism. Then she is indeed no longer a member of the community that worships money. Sally no longer shares the values that made her part of that group. She is, of course, free to invite her former compatriots to join her new group. In fact, Sally’s former membership may even make her a more effective evangelist. At the same time, her former compatriots are free to invite her to come back to the fold. But let me be clear: this would be an invitation across the border.

The nationalist ideology of "America First" is like Sally’s situation. The approach necessarily creates a border between those who embrace it and those who reject it. One could argue that being tolerant requires accepting the non-tolerance of others, but this is a logical fallacy. To accept the intolerance of difference is tantamount to being intolerant. To argue that the tolerant person—she who would uphold everyone's right to, 说, free speech—must accept another's intolerance is to doubly bind the celebrant of diversity. 

If you speak against intolerance, you are being intolerant of its perpetrator. If you accept an intolerant person's point of view as valid and thus one worth engaging, you embrace her intolerance—no matter how much you evenhandedly protest that you disagree. What then is the "progressive" to do? If the objective is to eradicate intolerance, accepting difference in the form of intolerance is not acceptable, 不合逻辑. The advice that we ought to "learn to live with what we hate" fails to recognize this dilemma. Because when what we hate is some people's hatred toward others—whether in the form of the religious intolerance that led to the 穆斯林禁止, the racism that has given new visibility to white supremacy, or the classism that informs the GOP’s desperation to repeal the Affordable Care Act—continuing to rage against is the only hope we have to be as tolerant as possible. 

As long as one side imagines itself a tribe, then all sides must imagine themselves tribes—and defend their borders vigorously. 我对左派的建议? It’s time to defend our borders and deliberately expand our territory, whatever that may mean for 部落主义, or for the United in the United States of America.