The Disease of Tribalism

In my view, Alex Pretti should not have brought a gun to a protest.

But if you disagree and believe Pretti was well within his right to bring a loaded concealed firearm to that fateful protest in Minneapolis where he was killed by ICE agents, then do you also think that the January 6th insurrectionists also had a right to carry their weapons to the Capitol?

You might think that on an issue like guns on which people have such strongly held beliefs, who was exercising the right wouldn’t matter. Either you had a right to carry around a loaded gun or you didn’t.

But in a recent Marquette poll of Wisconsin voters, when asked if Pretti had a constitutional right to carry a concealed weapon at a protest, only 56% of Republicans said he had that right while 88% of Democrats said he did.

Now, the truth is Pretti did have the legal right to carry his gun and, depending on where the January 6th protesters were in relation to firearms-free zones around the Capitol, some of them may have had the right as well. What the Marquette poll was really asking wasn’t about the technical legal question, but about the advisability of carrying a gun in a given situation.

But just a few months ago, when the same pollsters asked whether people approved of having concealed carry in the state as a general principle, 92% of Republicans said yes, as did 59% of Democrats.

Let me digress right here and express alarm that 59% of even Democrats now support concealed carry. As a gun owner myself I think wanting to carry one in public is just paranoid and bat shit crazy. Nobody who’s not a cop should be carrying around a loaded firearm in public, concealed or not. End of digression.

So, when you ask Republicans if they believe in the right to concealed carry in general 92% say ‘yes.’ But when you ask them if an ICE protester should be allowed to have one, that plummets to 56%. Now, you might say that their objection was to anybody carrying a gun to a highly charged protest. So what do you suppose those same Republicans would say about all the guns at the January 6th insurrection?

And, of course, the same goes for the Democrats. Some 59% of them support concealed carry generally (and I still can’t get over that), but when it comes to Pretti, 88% supported his right to carry a gun. And, again, ask those same Democrats about January 6th protesters’ right to carry a gun and I’ll bet you’d get a different response.

These responses speak volumes about our current predicament. There is so little in the way of dispassionate analysis or holding to the idea of consistency. If somebody in your tribe does it, it’s okay. If the other team does the very same thing, it’s wrong.

One of the points in YSDA’s Principles of Moderation is anti-tribalism. We’ll evaluate issues based on facts and reason. Who supports or opposes something isn’t especially relevant to an argument. But we’re a lonely outpost for that idea. The notion of impartiality — being willing to criticize your side when their arguments don’t add up or giving credit to the other guys when they make sense — has pretty much gone by the wayside now.

“This is really a perfect example that what we think are deeply held, rooted beliefs can move like that when your favorite leader takes an opposite position, or you think your side is advantaged by switching its position in a particular circumstance,” said Charles Franklin who directs the poll.

Agree with me or not on the gun issue, but I hope you will agree with me on the broader point. Our friends aren’t always right. Those we usually oppose aren’t always wrong. What should matter is the quality of their arguments. Facts, reason and consistency should matter. Tribalism is a disease.