Red Tribe

English

Etymology

Coined by American psychiatrist and blogger Scott Alexander Siskind in a 2014 blog post (see quotation), from the red colour of the Republican Party.

Proper noun

the Red Tribe

1. A loosely-defined culture in the United States associated with small-town culture and the Republican Party.

   Coordinate terms: Blue Tribe, Grey Tribe

   • 2014 September 30, Scott Alexander, “I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup”, in Slate Star Codex‎^[1], archived from the original on 2023-07-24:

     The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting "USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!", and listening to country music.

   • 2016 January 5, Conor Friedersdorf, “Oregon and the Injustice of Mandatory Minimums”, in The Atlantic‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 April 2017:

     And likening them to mass murderers amounts to irresponsible, indefensible demonization. It is unimaginable, save for the fact that the targets of state violence in this case are rural white men from the Red Tribe.

   • 2021 February 13, Cade Metz, “Silicon Valley’s Safe Space”, in The New York Times‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-28:

     Mr. Siskind was not a member of the Blue Tribe. He was not a voice from the conservative Red Tribe ("opposing gay marriage," "getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies"). He identified with something called the Grey Tribe — as did many in Silicon Valley.

   • 2021 September, Marcus T. Anthony, “WWW: Web Wide Warfare Part 2 - Towards a Deeper Healing of the Online Culture Wars”, in Journal of Futures Studies, volume 26, number 1, New Taipei City: Tamkang University Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 34:

     The blue/red dichotomy is admittedly an oversimplification of the reality that the culture wars now feature multiple memetic tribes, as Limberg and Barnes (2018) outline. Roughly aligned with the Blue tribe are groups like the establishment left, social justice activists, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Neo-Marxists and far-left radicals like Antifa; while aligned with the Red tribe are the establishment right, Benedictines, Christian right, Trumpists, Infowarriors and the Alt-right.