It isn't hard to see the thin red line that connects the nakedly tribal appeals of the Democratic National Convention with the bloody chaos in the Middle East. Despite Occupy Wall Street's best efforts our kind of tribalism does not involve mobs and gunmen violently attacking other groups, at least not in the formal sense, just representatives of the tribes getting up on the floor of a convention hall and promising that tribal priorities will be upheld through affirmative action and other redistributive schemes that will move more members of the oppressed tribes up the political and economic ladder.
We may scoff at the absurd sectarian arrangements of Iraqi and Lebanese politics, but we have our own quotas. Like the Sunnis and Shiites we turn out in large numbers to vote for our own, at least those who claim to be our own. Race, gender and other identity tabs have become excellent predictors of voting patterns and our conventions have become tribal displays that carefully include members of all the prominent tribes. Petty matters like economics or national defense have taken a backseat to unconvincing shows of tribal unity.
