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Nations and tribes

Lefty media freak out because Trump tells Boy Scouts loyalty is a good thing



What’s behind this, I think, is more than just anti-Trumpism – although there’s clearly a fair amount of that. The deeper root, though, is the fundamental shift we’re making as a country away from identification as Americans and toward identification with our various political or societal tribes. As we’ve discussed in this space before, loyalty is an admirable trait in an abstract sense. We all like the idea that someone would be loyal to us, or to something we identify with – whether that’s your country, your school, your team, your church or what-have-you. You don’t perceive loyalty as a bad thing unless you’re afraid that the object of the loyalty is unworthy of it, or untrustworthy with it.
So when a man who values loyalty as a trait talks to the Boy Scouts, who are known for exhibiting that trait, it’s only natural that he would commend them for it. But if you’re part of the crowd that sees all loyalty as sinister because you’re sure the loyalty must be in the service of something nefarious, then you freak out:
For more than a century, members of the Boy Scouts of America have sworn to uphold the values of Scout Law—the code of scouting chivalry that requires its adherents to be “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent” to all they encounter. On Monday evening, however, President Donald Trump used the backdrop of more than 35,000 Scouts celebrating the organization’s quadrennial Jamboree to fixate on just one value: loyalty. Specifically, how little he feels it in the nation’s capital. “As the Scout Law says, a Scout is trustworthy, loyal,” Trump said, pausing dramatically. “We could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.”

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When the political class and the media hear Donald Trump talk about loyalty, it sounds to them like Hitler talking about loyalty. They don’t think it’s about standing up for your country and your fellow countrymen. They think it’s either partisan or personal. The partisan is bad in their eyes because they oppose the party of the man speaking. The personal is even worse because that amounts to little more than an aspiring despot demanding fealty above all else. But I don’t think this is all about Trump. Whether people want to admit it or not – or whether they even realize it or not – the population of this country that is fixated on politics has increasingly come to identify with their political tribe above the country as a whole. It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when people of all partisan persuasions saw themselves as Americans first and Republicans or Democrats second. You fought over ideas because you genuinely believed your ideas were better for the country than the other guy’s. But you didn’t think the other guy was evil for disagreeing with you. You just thought he was wrong, and there was no doubt in your mind that he thought what he thought because he genuinely believed his ideas would benefit the country more than yours would. Partisans don’t see it that way today. You can still find individuals who embrace their ideas because they’re convinced the country would be better off, but that’s almost a peripheral subplot to the perpetual death match between Team Red and Team Blue. This is why you actually had Republicans who thought it would be better to let Hillary win and inflict unthinkable harm on the country. That would make the conservative movement better off in the long term!

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It would make the country worse off, but if you’re Team Red before you’re Team Red, White and Blue, what do you care? So when everything sounds partisan to you, because every thought in your own head is partisan, then you can’t hear a word like loyalty from the mouth of Donald Trump and not feel creeped out by it. You don’t think loyalty is a good thing, because you don’t really believe there’s anything worth being loyal to. You’re just trying to do whatever you can to notch victories for your tribe over the other tribe. And when you do mouth platitudes about loving America, even that’s merely strategic messaging. So along comes a president who values loyalty for loyalty’s sake, and you can’t even conceive of that message being offered sincerely. It has to be sinister, because ultimately everything uttered in the arena is. It’s all the game. The problem here is not Donald Trump. The problem is you. Unfortunately, you’re surrounded by so many other people who affirm your way of thinking – because they like you became immersed in this thinking long ago – that you have no hope of ever seeing how corrupt your own heart has become. You might take down Donald Trump, perhaps as a big win for Team Establishment. The country may come down with him, but what do you care? The country hasn’t been the object of your loyalty for a very long time.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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