Here’s why: It’s become increasingly hard to deny that there’s a tribal sorting process—chronicled by Bill Bishop in his book The Big Sort—taking place in American political life. That tribalism now goes beyond red states and blue states—and beyond even the depressing reality that we all increasingly read and watch news sources that confirm our already-existing points of view. Lately, perhaps because of the Internet, perhaps for other sociological reasons, these tribal loyalties seem to be bleeding more and more into areas that have no natural connection to politics.
To take some recent examples: As a gay man, I can’t go to Chick-fil-A; meanwhile, the anti-gay crowd can’t shop at JC Penney (ever since it anointed Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson) or go see ParaNorman (a non-political kids movie with a single joke that is sympathetic to gay rights). As a Jew and a Zionist, I’m supposed to be shopping at Trader Joe’s, which has resisted pressure to stop stocking Israeli products. But as a liberal Zionist, I’m also supposed to be careful not to purchase products that were made in West Bank settlements…
If being a conservative or a liberal dictates everything from where we eat to where we shop, can we manage to remain a single society? It’s a tough quandary: We don’t want to be apathetic and fail to fight vigorously on all fronts for our beliefs, yet we also know a country where even non-political activities are completely sorted along political lines will be unworkable—and probably deeply unpleasant, too.
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