The Tribes

The Freakonomics blog asked "When is it ok to vote for your own race?" I thought that was a question that didn't get to the reality of the problem.

The word “racist” is so toxic that it’s preventing us from confronting the basic fact as humans, we are tribal in nature. I don’t want “tribal” to become an excuse for racist behavior, but I think it helps explain our affinities and voting behavior.

My favorite new word from this election cycle is “white ethnic”, which was a term coined to explain why working-class whites were not voting for Obama in the democratic primaries.

It’s my belief that one way to split the American demographic is into “ethnic” groups and the “mainstream.”

If you’re part of an “ethnic” group, be it black, white, latino, whatever, you are less likely to vote for someone from another ethnic group. They aren’t part of your “tribe,” and they’re perhaps even from a competing tribe (re: black factory workers cheering as their latino co-workers are rounded up by INS).

However, Barack Obama isn’t really part of the “black ethnic” voting group — he’s part of the
“mainstream.” And if you’re a “mainstream” voter, you don’t care that he’s black. However, if you’re an ethnic voter, you do — and if you’re black, you’ll vote for him; if you’re not, you might not.

The flip side of this is that a “mainstream” voter does not want to vote for an “ethnic” candidate. While Barack Obama is part of the mainstream, Al Sharpton, for example, is a "black ethnic" candidate. Most mainstream voters (especially non-blacks) won’t vote for Sharpton. The mainstream voter can be effectively just as “tribal” as the ethnic voter — it’s just that because it’s not drawn on color lines, it doesn’t come under the banner of “racism”.

Here's a proposal for some new definitions:

. If you are an "ethnic" voter but would not vote for a "mainstream" candidate with a different ethnicity, that could be termed "racism."
. If you are a "mainstream" voter but would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate of your own ethnicity, that could be termed "elitism."
. If you are mainstream or ethnic and would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate different from your own ethnicity, that could be termed "human."

Is John McCain a "white ethnic" candidate? I don't think he is. But Sarah Palin is definitely a "white ethnic" candidate, which ups McCain's "white ethnic" connection through his choice. So in choosing Palin, McCain had to do the calculus that she would help him with the "white ethnic" vote and probably hurt him with both the mainstream and the other ethnic votes. And I'm sure the polls would reflect this fact exactly. Question is, is the net help greater than the net hurt? We'll find out.