When you look at politics and sports, as well as so many other facets of society, it is clear that humans cannot escape tribalism. Sports is a mostly harmless exercise of this tribal tendency. You root for your home team and hate the other teams, their cities, and fans. But it’s not real hate. Red Sox and Yankees fans don’t want to kill each other—it’s all just fun and games. There are no real stakes for rabid sports fans, certainly not life and death.
But politics is a different matter. There are real stakes, and it oftentimes does mean life or death. Just look at what politics did to its citizens in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic: lockdowns, riots, mandates, job loss, taxes, inflation, etc. Or look at what politics has done to those soldiers and civilians who lost their lives after being sent to fight in various wars in the Middle East. Or consider the millions who are serving life sentences for victimless crimes deemed “illegal” by politics.
It is not just the politicians and oligarchical overlords to blame. (If only it were so simple). When you live in a democracy, everyone has a (theoretical) say over all of these political policies that can potentially become matters of life or death for some. Therefore, democratic citizens must be at each others’ throats. If your neighbor is voting for the other party and their policies can result in impoverishment, imprisonment, or death to people like you, it is perfectly logical to hate your political opponents. This is why it is impossible to escape heated tribalism in a democracy.
Opposing political factions will always hate each other, and that tribal hatred can sometimes escalate to physical violence, depending on the stakes involved. For instance, if one political faction wants to enact a policy to force another faction into prison camps unless they receive a certain medical procedure, that targeted faction might be willing to raise arms to defend their freedom. So how do you escape this natural political tribalism without a hot civil war?
The solution may be returning to a governmental system that was successful for centuries (at least) before the chaos of democracy: monarchy. Like sports, monarchy exercises people’s natural tendency toward tribalism, but in a better, more peaceful way. Since in a monarchy the average masses have no influence on politics and policy decisions, they have no reason to fight each other over those issues. The king decides all policy. And if the masses hate any current policy, they can direct their ire toward the king (who is actually in power and deserves such hatred), and not at their fellow citizens (who have no real power, in a monarchy or democracy).
In a monarchy the king is incentivized to provide for the well-being of all his people, not just certain political factions or donors. He must please all citizens because if any group becomes dissatisfied enough with the king, they can assassinate him. One person is easier to take out than a decentralized bureaucracy composed of thousands of oligarchs wielding power. If you’re overly dissatisfied in the current US “democracy,” where do you direct your ire? The president? Your senator? Congressmen? Mayor? Your neighbor? The Federal Reserve? IRS? CIA? FBI? NSA? FDA? CDC? EPA? Anthony Fauci? Lockheed Martin? Pfizer? J.P. Morgan? Blackrock? The teacher’s union? Your local school board? The ACLU? Nancy Pelosi? Mitch McConnell? The Supreme Court? The World Economic Forum? Klaus Schwab? The Bilderbergs? The Rothschilds? Bill Gates? Or is it a combination of all of the above, encompassing millions of people around the world with competing interests whose sole commonality is they do not care about you?
The power in this behemoth of our current federal government is far too decentralized with too many tentacles to cut off. Most of the real power in the US is wielded by unelected bureaucrats anyway. So even with your vote, there is nothing you can do... except vent your outrage and hatred at the other political tribe (who also has no actual power over any of the government policy and decision-making). In reality, the US democracy is just as much of a LARP as sports fandom.
In a monarchy, the king has absolute power but also absolute responsibility. If he fails to provide a good life for his people, he will face the guillotine, and a new king will deliver better results or face the same fate. If a king succeeds in creating a good life for his people, the people will love their king and love their nation. Monarchy directs humans’ natural political tribalism toward the entire nation, not just their political faction (or party). Likewise, the citizenry’s natural hatred for the out-group would be directed outward toward anyone who opposes or threatens their nation and king, not inward toward their fellow citizens.
Of course nationalism has the potential downside of leading to war, but wars were rare during the age of monarchies. Kings were more likely to make deals to avoid war, as peace benefited each kingdom more than violence. Democracy, however, incentivizes war because there are always certain political factions within a democracy who would benefit from the war, be they weapons manufacturers, oil barons, bankers, etc. If the country loses the war, those instigators face little to no repercussions. It is not their lives, money, or property at stake—it is the people’s. Furthermore, these private sector warmongers often benefit financially no matter who wins—they hedge their bets by backing both sides. But would a king ever dream of supplying bombs to his enemy?
The President who starts a war is rarely still in office when that war ends (usually in a disastrous manner, as in the case of the recent escapades in the Middle East), so that President never has to face the consequences for their catastrophic mistakes. But a king remains on the throne for a lifetime, so if he starts a war it will be him (or his direct descendants) who will be responsible for its outcome. War—win or lose—always ends in blood, but democracy allows warmongers to wash the blood from their hands and avoid blame, while in a monarchy the king must face the piper.
It is therefore no surprise that almost immediately after toppling the monarchies in Europe and implementing democracies worldwide there were back to back World Wars, the greatest scale of tribal violence in human history. Hundreds of millions were slaughtered and cities were destroyed. The magnitude of violence was not just a result of technological advancements that enabled mass killing—it was the change in government from monarchy to democracy.
No king would have ever let a World War happen to his land and his people. No monarch would ever drop an atomic bomb on another monarch. Say what you will about Kim Jong-Un, but he’s smart enough to know he needs nukes to defend himself, and he’s also smart enough to never actually launch one at another country—because he knows he will not live to see the aftermath. Tenfold nukes will be swiftly returned to his own land. If North Korea were a democracy, however, and there were opposing factions competing for power, one group may orchestrate the launch of a nuke (while abroad to take out their enemy) then return to claim power over the country after the carnage has settled.
The political tribalism created by democracy led to the death and destruction of World War I and II (and countless civil wars), and it will continue to cause chaos and violence in the future—unless humanity reverts to more traditional monarchical systems that redirect our natural tribalism toward benign causes. In a monarchy, tribalism is more akin to the harmless sports variety. You can love your king and country and hate the others, but you won’t go to actual war with them. Just simulate and play games, like the Olympics.
