Conservatives and Classical Liberals go on endless tirades against tribalism. They complain about how much they hate identity politics and keep insisting that ideas are the only thing that matter. As time goes on, the tribalism only increases, and they become more and more crazed in their denunciations of identity as something to be valued.
What none of them realize is that as long as different tribes or nations are involved, politics can only be tribal. There is no room for classical liberal values in politics as long as even one tribe is pursuing its own interests. This means, of course, that if one group keeps pretending that tribes don’t matter (possibly due to some kind of pathological altruism), they’re only going to lose.
If the tribes are clashing, there’s gonna be a thrashing. One tribe is going to win.
Tribalism is how the game is played now that we live in multi-tribal societies. If you won’t play by the rules, if you insist on following the rules from a previous tournament, you’re going to lose. Moaning about how the other side isn’t following your rule-book is worse than useless.
Trying to get your political opposition to see the world from your perspective never works. It could be described as autistic.