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But U.S. citizens will also need to collectively fashion a national identity capable of resonating with and holding together Americans of all sorts—old and young, immigrant and native born, urban and rural, rich and poor, descendants of slaves as well as descendants of slave owners. A first step would be to start bridging the chasm of mutual ignorance and disdain separating the coasts and the heartland. One idea would be a public service program that would encourage or require young Americans to spend a year after high school in another community, far from their own, not “helping” members of another group but interacting with people with whom they would normally never cross paths, ideally working together toward a common end.
Increasing tribalism is not only an American problem, however. Variants of intolerant tribal populism are erupting all across Europe, eroding support for supranational entities such as the European Union and even threatening the liberal international order. Brexit, for example, was a populist backlash against elites in London and Brussels perceived by many as controlling the United Kingdom from afar and being out of touch with “real” Britons—the “true owners” of the land, many of whom see immigrants as a threat. Internationally, as in the United States, unity will come not by default but only through hard work, courageous leadership, and collective will. Cosmopolitan elites can do their part by acknowledging that they themselves are part of a highly exclusionary and judgmental tribe, often more tolerant of difference in principle than in practice, inadvertently contributing to rancor and division.