Thread by @davepell

1. Let me explain political tribalism using sports as an example.

If I’m watching basketball and one player grabs another player’s genitals, my feelings about that offending player are likely to trend negative.

But wait…

2. When my home team player Draymond Green repeated yanks on some nuts, I’m like, “Well, in the grand scheme of things, what’s a little genital pulling.”

Maybe its part a broader strategy. Everyone knows the way to dude’s head is through his crotch.

It’s the same offense, yet

3. Because it’s a guy from my team, I dramatically change my view of the severity of the offense.

If you team’s player grabbed my team’s player by the balls, I would be unequivocally opposed.

But because it’s my team, I fall somewhere on the spectrum between thinking it’s…

4. …Really no big deal to saying it’s part of the game and the real issue is that the owner of genitals is making a big thing out of the grab.

I am sublimating my own disgust and your judgment about that is a threat to what I’ve got going over there.

Now I hate you because…

5. You’re part of the other team and because you’re majorly bumming my high — just like you always do with your self-righteous bullshit.

It’s a long way of saying, you are much more likely to support a behavior if its’ from a person on your team. And the opposite is true when…

6. … you’re laying judgment on the other team and its fans.

This scenario is what makes sports fun. All of sports radio was built on this reality.

We are not reasonable when it comes to judging those on the team we’re rooting for.

You thought DeflateGate was about nothing…

7. When in fact it was about everything in sports.

If you view political discourse through this lens, it makes more sense.

Consider how differently the two teams viewed the genital grabbing that came to light during the election.

Those who were rooting against Trump’s team…

8. … thought the tapes were certain to mark end of Trump’s campaign.

If you were on Trump’s team, you thought the offense is just a personality quirk, the way everyone is, or even a laudable act. And you’re pissed at the other team for suggesting that this means you’re…

9. … out of your fucking mind.

So there you have it. That’s how two genital grabbing stories and a simple sports analogy explain what the hell is going on in America.

The ultimate question is how deep this intersquad team worship runs.

Signs are that it runs really deep…

10. Example: If you’re on team Trump, you were willing to overlook the fact that Trump gave away a lot for nothing in return at the Singapore Summit. And when that’s pointed out, you feel threatened and accuse the threateners of playing politics.

If you’re on the other team…

11. … you’re opposition to the opposing team’s star is so fervent, that you were sort of happy to hear that Kim Jong Un is moving forward with his nuke program.

Think about that next time you give me a hard time about overlooking Draymond’s nut grabs.