Replacement

[Angrboda]

Reading an article this morning about how the use of the term 'RINO' (Republican In Name Only) has become more prominent in the Republican party, and shifted over time from a nuanced meaning of "not ideologically correct" to "not sufficiently loyal," it occurs to me that exclusion and discrimination is somewhat baked into our nature. While concentrating the intensity and energy of the base is useful in some respects, it's also resulting in a fracturing of the Republican party into exclusive, mutually antagonistic groups. Conservatives watch with glee as moderates and progressives in the Democratic party neutralize their effectiveness with intra-party squabbles, the Republicans are creating a similar problem of their own. And it seems to be a long-running theme. Abrahamic religions are a lot about who is and isn't a proper believer. The first such fracture, which I've been trying to figure out how to bring into the conversation, was between Jews and, well, everybody else. And then came the schisms, and eventually things like the 30,000+ different flavors of Christianity. And one might even argue that before that, the consolidation of geographic areas into nations, fiefs, and kingdoms operates on much the same principle. There are people to whom are allegiance is owed, against all the outsiders. As a matter of psychology, people who are conservative politically, place a higher premium on moral themes of loyalty and purity (ref: Jonathan Haidt). So it seems an inevitable dynamic that movements like white supremacy would be more popular on the right than the left. Yet as the Democratic party squabbles make clear, it's hardly a problem solely belonging to certain politics or ideologies.