re: #198 Talking Point Detective

Just substitute partisan, or similar adjective, for tribalism.

I think that you’re also making a mistake in talking about ‘both sides’ wanting a certain outcome.

For me, tribalism gets the connotation I’m intending to convey across better (partisan suggests party affiliation, and what I’m referencing is a more broad type of identification) - but I note your observation.

To me, it’s so broad as to be useless. I have no idea what two sides you mean. I also don’t think there are two different desired outcomes. Some people ‘want’ Zimmerman found guilty, others ‘want’ to have the law applied justly even if they think the law is terrible, and they ‘want’ the law to be rewritten because they feel it protects people in Zimmerman’s position. Other people ‘want’ the charges to be dropped, others ‘want’ Zimmerman to be found innocent, others ‘want’ it to be revealed that Martin actually was armed and they just found his fearsome black mans gun in the grass so Zimmerman was all great.

Reducing stuff to two sides is always silly. Then adding ‘tribalism’ on top of that is even sillier, to me. I do not think you are in the least bit correct that most of those who want to see Zimmerman tried and convicted are being ‘tribal’ or ‘partisan’ or anything of the sort.