Great American Independents (Part One): Amy Chua on Political Tribalism

Written By Emily Holloway

July 4, 2022 | Can we balance celebrating our multiculturalism with sharing a national identity?

Episode artwork for the purple principle podcast interview with amy chua

The Purple Principle celebrates Independence Day with its first of two episodes in a mini-series on America’s great independent voices. Amy Chua, perhaps best known by her bestselling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, launches our exploration of figures who cut through the cacophony of partisan bickering. Chua is a Yale law professor and author of Political Tribes, a classically purple book on the tribal thinking and mobilization that undermine democracy.

“No group in America feels comfortably dominant. Every group feels attacked, pitted against other groups not just for jobs and spoils, but for the right to define the nation’s identity. In these conditions, democracy devolves into zero-sum group competition. Pure political tribalism.”

In a conversation with TPP host Rob Pease, Chua talks about the challenges of navigating existing partisan frameworks when speaking to a mostly progressive yet increasingly fragmented student body.

“Ridiculously.. If you start talking about free speech, you might as well wear a huge sign saying right wing,” says Chua of her classroom discussions. “I have found that if I just avoid certain kinds of traps or certain patterns, I can actually generate a great conversation across the political divide.”

Chua also points out the growing perception among many marginalized groups that America’s ideals are a fraud, and the dangerous degradation of our shared national identity, which were major topics of Political Tribes, published in 2018 yet still resonant today. Host Rob Pease questions Chua on what effect the pandemic, Stop the Steal, January 6, and other events of the last five years have had on this trend.

“We do not have to pick between patriotism and having a really strong national identity and multiculturalism,” says Chua of Americans feeling the cross-winds of identity politics. “We can actually have both… I think we will emerge out of this, but I don't think we've rounded the corner quite yet.”

These and other topics explored on TPP’s first episode in a mini-series of great independent voices. Please tune in and review us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

With original music from Ryan Adair Rooney. 

Transcript

Amy Chua

This is a country unlike authoritarian countries or rigid, kind of paternalistic countries where you could just be yourself and that's valued. 

Robert Pease (Host)

That’s Amy Chua, a noted author, Yale Law School professor, and a refreshingly independent voice for this Independence Day episode.

Amy Chua

And one of the things that attracted my parents or my father, especially was a real maverick, is American individualism.

Robert Pease (Host)

Like any good maverick or independent, though, Amy Chua’s not afraid to criticize the excesses and abscesses of American politics.

Amy Chua 

And I just don’t know what's happened to our society…I mean some of my views are pretty far to the left. Some of my views might be considered pretty far to the right. It's just,I think I'm a pretty moderate person overall, but we're all informed by our past.

Robert Pease (Host) 

Polarization is certainly one thing that has happened to our society, leaving independents and moderates without much of a voice. Except here on The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of that polarization. I’m Robert Pease, and this episode we’ll hear from Amy Chua about our zero-sum American orthodoxies, our destabilizing inequalities, and the challenges of teaching law students in a hyper-partisan environment.

(Archival Audio - Collage of Yale Law School news)

We’ll ask Amy Chua to comment on a few of the many prescient passages of her classically purple book, Political Tribes.  But, let’s start back where things started for this indie-minded individual,  Amy Chua, as a second generation Asian American kid growing up in the midwest. 

(Enter Interview)

Amy Chua 

And it may be hard for you guys to imagine this now. You know, this is in the sixties and seventies and I was the pretty much the only Asian kid in, I don't know, my whole school, the whole neighborhood. And, as kids will do, some guy ran around making slanty eyes and sort of mocking my accent. And I came home and I was upset. I must have been about seven and complained to my mom that this guy had done this. And my mom was mad at me, not the kid <laugh>. And she said, “What is wrong with you? We come from the most magnificent, the most ancient civilization. We invented everything. And if this stupid kid doesn't even know that, why would you spend one second even thinking about him?” So the upshot of that is that she instilled this sense of, I don't know, almost like pride in my heritage and background that became a kind of psychological armor in some ways against that kind of small time discrimination.

Robert Pease (Host) 

I think a lot of readers, reviewers, and probably your students try to pigeonhole you politically in philosophy. You strike us as a very independent voice. So, in your own words, tell us about your own political philosophy and orientation.

Amy Chua

Oh, I'm completely independent. And, it's funny, you mentioned that my parents were both immigrants from Asia. They came in the sixties and I was always taught never to complain because this is the best country. I actually like to think that there's a silent majority of reasonable secret closet moderates. I really do think that because my classes have huge wait lists, but when you read about me or what you see is that they're protests and I'm so controversial. And yet, my classes are genuinely diverse. They have conservatives and they also have people on the left. But everybody who's willing to take my class, because I put a big banner on my syllabus that this is a class where everybody's gonna talk to each other. There's gonna be an assumption of good faith. So by self-selection, I tend to get the more open-minded, thoughtful people, even if they have pretty extreme views themselves, the ones who are willing to talk to others. 

Robert Pease (Host)

Well speaking of that dialogue, we are also very interested in this term, illiberalism that's capturing what seems to be happening to civil society, freedom of speech, rule of law. We're wondering if that's a term that you use in your classes…

Amy Chua

Honestly, Robert, I have found that there are certain buzzwords that every single thing immediately gets cannibalized by political tribalism. So, five years ago you could use this term woke, but now if you use the term woke, you're identifying yourself somehow as on the right or something. And so I actually, my strategy is the opposite of that. Ridiculously, talking about free speech, which used to be a left wing position. If you start talking about free speech, you might as well just wear a huge sign saying right wing. So what I feel very lucky about is I teach a class called international business transactions, but I use it to talk about the issues in political tribes, but I introduce my own concepts. And maybe we'll talk about some of this like market dominant minorities or, you know, I use kind of different frameworks. And I have found that if I just avoid certain kinds of traps or certain patterns, I can actually generate a great conversation across the political divide.

Robert Pease (Host)

I see. So you actually have to stay ahead of your students, which is not an easy thing to do because they change vocabulary pretty quickly.

Amy Chua

Exactly. And I'm lucky because you know, I've written books with these other– I mean who knows what a market dominant minority is and how does that fit into the left right divide in the U.S.? It's different than saying something like abortion or affirmative action. With those, oh my gosh, you're gonna go straight to vitriol on both sides. So, I've been pretty lucky. 

Robert Pease (Host)

Well, that's interesting. Now, this may be a bit of a presumption, but do you think things are any better now that we're over, hopefully, the worst part of COVID, we're over, hopefully, the worst part of the Trump period in office, January 6th, stop the steal, all that stuff? Is there a slight lowering of the temperature?

Amy Chua

Look, I teach on the most progressive campus, I think, in the country at Yale law school. I don't myself see a lowering of the temperature yet. With COVID, a lot of people thought just like 9/11 brought both sides together, back in 2001, maybe the pandemic will. Nope. I was right in my predictions. COVID was instantly cannibalized by tribalism. I think two things might lead to a better situation in future. The first is so many people getting canceled. I know a lot of students who were very strident who then have come under fire themselves. You could see this even with public figures and celebrities. And, at a certain point, if everybody's hit, I think there's gonna be a sense that look, maybe we've gone too far. 

The other thing, and this is a tragedy, I have seen that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is surprisingly an area where, again you do see on cable news, pundits scrambling to figure out how could we blame this on the other side, but it is actually an area where there is relatively more agreement. I mean, nobody wants another war after Afghanistan. But that's an interesting area where I've noticed my students on both sides of the political divide, do not seem to be at each other's throats.

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah. That is encouraging. I guess you could say it's kind of touched our basic humanity. Let's move on then to a reading from Political Tribes. If you wouldn't mind starting off with “No group in America feels comfortably dominant.

Amy Chua

Yes, I wrote, “Today, no group in America feels comfortably dominant. Every group feels attacked, pitted against other groups, not just for jobs and spoils, but for the right to define the nation's identity. In these conditions, democracy devolves into zero sum group competition, pure political tribalism.”

Robert Pease (Host)

So five years later, any change in the situation, any change in your analysis of it?

Amy Chua

Unfortunately not. What I tried to do in Political Tribes, Robert, is to kind of rise above the fray and figure out what are the root causes of all this polarization and bitterness right now. And one of the factors I sort of identify is the massive demographic change that we've experienced in the last 50 years. Basically for the first time in U.S. history, whites are on the verge of losing their majority status at the national level. And this is unprecedented. Whites have always been politically and culturally and economically dominant, and I'm not saying that's a good situation that also led to things like slavery and all kinds of terrible things. But, the significance for this moment is that today, it's not just racial and ethnic minorities who feel threatened. Whites feel threatened. I cite all these statistics in Political Tribes that show what it's like. 65% of white Americans feel that they are actually subject to more discrimination than minorities. So that's one thing that's definitely not diminished in the last five years.

Robert Pease (Host)

 But I wonder if you see it as possibly helpful that the census has now a new category the multi racial category  which is, 10% of the population and, and probably  increasing steadily…

Amy Chua 

Well, I take your point. To be very honest, for me, it's a little bit distressing what I see on college campuses, which I would describe as just further and further splintering and fragmenting. It used to be that I could host parties or a mixer with a Black students association, the Asian association, and the Outlaws, our gay student group. No more today. Everybody wants their own separate groups. They hang out together. It's very segregated, but worse than that, even within the groups, say within the Latino students association, now things are broken down by color. So there's a colorism issue, which I sympathize with. I understand, but it's just fracturing more and more and more. And so where that could offer hope it, what I've seen is in some ways, people turning on each other. It's like smaller and smaller groups often with a kind of overlay of victimization over it, like which group is more oppressed. So for me that hasn't necessarily been a promising development.

Robert Pease (Host)

So I think, a phrase that you use in one of your interviews, the Oppression Olympics are still being held. It sounds like.

Amy Chua 

Yeah. There are also psychological studies about that. That's not that healthy just to feel that way. <laugh> And something you said earlier, I mean, I think a lot of, I predicted this in Political Tribes. When you, when you get a lot of the far left saying, “Whites are the worst thing on the planet and just admit that you're just a genocidal people and just go to the back of the line and you should be quiet.” Of course, that is going to provoke among some people, this feeling of, “Hey, we're not that bad. And, we also founded this country.” And those people are going to be really susceptible to the appeal of demagogues. As you say, somebody's gonna say, “You know what, not only are you not so bad, but white people have done a lot of great things.” And so psychologically you could kind of see where this all came from.

(Exit Interview)

(ad break)

Robert Pease (Host) 

We’re speaking with Amy Chua, noted author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and of Political Tribes, one of the best explanations of how tribal thinking and mobilization undermine the norms of civil society and democracy. As promised, let’s hear Amy’s thoughts on a few of the many prescient passages from Political Tribes, written five years ago but resonating so powerfully in the present moment… 

(Enter Interview)

Amy Chua

So I wrote, “Today's purveyors of political tribalism on both the left and the right may think they are defending America's values. But, in fact, they're playing with poison. America will cease to be America and will no longer be a super group. If we define our national identity in terms of whiteness or Anglo Protestant culture, or European Christianity, or any other terms not inclusive of all religions and ethnicities. But, it will also cease to be American, if enough of us come to believe that our country and its ideals are a fraud.”

Robert Pease (Host)

So five years later, we know identity politics is still very polarizing and in fact, people can agree more on policy than they can on identity. But do you see any change, any progress, any hope on that issue?

Amy Chua

Look, I'm usually an optimist. Maybe what I should do is explain this concept of a supergroup, which I say, America is.  It's something we should feel so proud of. It's a simple concept in my book, I define a supergroup as a society or a country that shares two features. The first is a really strong overarching national identity like American or Chinese. But the second condition to be a supergroup is that you also have to let subgroup and sub-tribal identities flourish, different religions, different ethnicities. And at our best, this is America. It's a place where you can be Irish American or Korean American or Libyan American or Mexican American or Cuban American and intensely patriotic at the same time. And if you think about other countries; China's not a super group because it's got a really strong overarching national identity, but of course it doesn't let smaller subgroup identities flourish at all, like the Uighur or the Tibetans.

But to your question, if you look at America today, it's really worrisome because we are kind of losing that first condition. I have a lot of students now, Gen Z students, progressive students, who just say our founding fathers, they were just a bunch of dead white males. They had slaves. They were misogynists. The constitution, that's just a document that I don't identify with. And besides the people who wrote it had slaves anyway. And that is really troubling because if we don't have the U.S. Constitution and the principles in that Constitution to hold this country together, nothing can. Right? Because our foundational values are the constitution. That's what our identity is. And we're really lucky in that sense. The U.S. identity is not ethnically based like it is in countries like China.

And so this should be really good that we are able, as I said in Political Tribes, that we actually had an advantage that we do not have to pick between patriotism and having a really strong national identity and multiculturalism. We can actually have both. You could have thriving sub identities and still a really strong American identity. And I think, you know, in some ways both prongs are being challenged right now. So we're still in some shaky waters. I think we will emerge out of this, but I don't think we've rounded the corner quite yet.

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah. That's interesting. In a recent episode here, we had a guest who looked back on Representative Barbara Jordan as kind of an important figure and her famous quote about not being included in the first draft of the Constitution…

(Archival Audio - Barbara Jordan)

Robert Pease

That's such an important sentiment, I think, for young people to hear. So next quote, we don't like to give this individual a lot of publicity. He seems to get too much on his own, but on tribalism in America,

Amy Chua

Tribalism in America propelled Donald Trump to the White House. If we want to understand this tribalism, we have to acknowledge the impact of inequality and the wedge that it drives between America's whites. Coastal elites have become a kind of market dominant minority from the point of view of America's Heartland. And, as we've seen all over the developing world, market dominant minorities invariably end up producing backlash.

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah. So a lot of important items in there. First of all, maybe you could explain a little bit market dominant minorities and majorities.

Amy Chua 

So for most of my academic career, I focused on developing countries like Indonesia and Zimbabwe and Iraq and Venezuela. And I identified this phenomenon that was kind of unfamiliar to us in the U.S.. In fact, I just said that, oh, we don't have this problem. I said that in my 2003 book World on Fire and a market dominant minority is basically a tiny ethnic minority, like for example, the 3% Chinese in Indonesia who, despite their tiny numbers control about 70% of the private economy. And this tiny little Chinese minority, they speak their own language. They don't intermarry with indigenous Indonesians. They're viewed as very arrogant. What I said in 2003 is that in these conditions, democracy can actually be really destabilizing, cuz you'll get demagogues that say, “Hey, all of you, poor majority members vote for me and we will confiscate the assets of this market, net minority, or we'll kick them out. It's their fault. It's this tiny arrogant group that controls everything. That's why you're poor. So vote for me…” 

I always thought that this was not a problem that we had in the United States because we didn't have a market dominant minority, not a little ethnic group that controlled most of the wealth nation's wealth. But what I wrote in Political Tribes is that with this terrible decline in upward mobility that we've seen in the United States, partly just because I think our education system is broken. It used to be that you could be kind of a poor kid from the middle of the country, go to a free state school and somehow make it to San Francisco or New York and make it big. And the result is that class has actually divided America's whites. And because of that, we've seen the emergence of –it's only an analogy cuz it's not an ethnic group– but I think it's our own little idiosyncratic version of a really resented market dominant minority. And if you think about it, most of America's wealth actually is concentrated on either the West Coast or the East Coast: Silicon Valley, Hollywood,  Wall Street, Washington, the Ivy league. And coastal elites are not all white by the way, they include immigrants. 

And it's, it kind of is like an ethnic group because they don't intermarry. <laugh> I mean, look at dating apps. People will say Trump supporters need not apply. And what I wrote in Political Tribes is that what happened in the November 2016 election is actually very similar to a developing world dynamic. Basically, a demagogic figure said, “We need to take back America. This country is being dominated and controlled and run into the ground by a bunch of snobby, swampy cosmopolitan elites that have no respect for the rest of America. They're not even real Americans. We need to make America great again. These people, they care more about the poor in Africa than they do about real Americans. They care more about immigrants and letting them all in than they do about the Heartland.” And the rhetoric is very similar to what you saw with people like Hugo Chavez saying in Venezuela, “It's these corrupt elites.  Vote for me!” So, that's the argument there.

Robert Pease (Host)

We'd like to play a clip from one other guest and talk a little bit more about Yale law students and educational environments. This is the President of Open Primaries, John Opdycke.

(Look back)

John Opdycke

Well, 30 years ago, I went to college and I made the silly mistake of joining the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats at the same time. And I didn't know that wasn't allowed. I came from a very non-political family. I was very naive. I went away to college with somewhat of a chip on my shoulder to get more worldly and knowledgeable of how the world worked. And I thought getting involved in politics was a good way to do that. But I very quickly learned that that's not what party politics was. Party politics was picking a team and bashing the other side. 

(End look back)

Robert Pease (Host) 

We're wondering if you've encountered any young John Opdyckes wandering around the Yale campus or does everyone arrive kind of prepolarized…

Amy Chua

Again, this is the optimistic part of me. It is absolutely true that what you hear would suggests that things are even worse. Just like eight years ago, I had conservative students who could be friends with my liberal students and they would argue and debate and then go out for a beer afterwards. Right now the lines are frozen. If you are a progressive and you are seen just talking to a member of the Federal Society, you're instantly shamed. You're called Fed Soc-adjacent. So I think that the phenomenon he was describing, if anything appears to have gotten worse, the silver lining the part where I'm hopeful goes to, again, this idea of a silent majority. I cannot tell you, Robert, how many people come to my office and say, I didn't wanna sign this document, but I just felt so much pressure to sign it or I actually don't feel this way. I actually think this person's not that bad, but I can't admit that to anyone. 

I have a class where I make everybody write response papers and they're so brilliant and interesting. And I always like to share their views. But for the first time in 25 years of teaching, they now say, “Can you please not share this with the rest of the class? Can I say the opposite of what I wrote?” So I feel that it's both sad that they have to feel that way. But I also feel it's hopeful that I think it's a larger group of people than you think who are actually a little bit more independent, a little bit more blended and see a little bit of possibility in both sides. 

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah, Amy what have we missed here from your book or that you wanted to highlight as Political Tribes nears its five year anniversary…

Amy Chua

I think the only thing I'll say is when I reread it, my students also just, I read a chapter, and everybody was struck by this prediction I made. I think it's in the first chapter. And this is five years ago. I wrote it before the election or it was just after the election of Donald Trump. What I said was if things keep going in this direction, what we're gonna see is that we're gonna see the United States taking on more and more of the characteristics of developing countries, including we're gonna start to see lurches towards authoritarianism, rising demagoguery. And this is the main point, the erosion of trust in institutions and electoral outcomes. That's right in there. I think I wrote that in 2017 and it is something that we really need to worry about because it's definitely something new and troubling.

(Exit Interview)

Robert Pease (Host) 

That’s Amy Chua, Yale Law School Professor and somewhat infamous Tiger Mother, but here on The Purple Principle, much more of a role model of indie-minded American individualism for this Independence Day episode. 

We learned a lot from and about Amy Chua in this discussion. The psychological armor she absorbed from her own Tiger Mom. The confessions of her more moderate Yale Law School students feeling socially pressured to adopt more extreme positions. Her great concern for our constitutional democracy as respect for American traditions and institutions erode from all directions. But also a bit of optimism there on the come together consensus of most Americans, politicians included, on the Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression.. 

Next up on The Purple Principle another informed indy-vidual for this independence day month of July. Andrew Heaton is an author, satirist, comedian, podcast host and politics nerd. And yes that is all one guest:

Andrew Heaton

I am ethnically a Republican because I'm from Oklahoma, but I worked on the hill as a Democrat. I got really into libertarian stuff for a while. I still have leanings that are that way, but I am an independent. I'd say I am a temperamental moderate who wants to help people, but thinks the government's not very effective at it. So that's about where I am and you can make of that what you want.

Robert Pease (Host)

We’ll try to make what we want of Andrew in that episode as he discusses his best selling book of poetry, Los Angeles is Hideous and  the “Don’t California My Texas” bumper stickers he observes from his home in Austin on cars with Florida license plates. It’s the perfect summer soundtrack of political humor and wisdom from a think tank kind of wise guy. 

We hope you’ll tune in and turn on some of your friends to this episode’s discussion with the ever engaging Amy Chua and something like discussion upcoming with Andrew Heaton. Many thanks for listening in from​​ The Purple Principle team. We’d greatly appreciate your support on Patreon or Apple Subscriptions as well. Plus reviews on Apple Podcasts are hugely helpful, too. All of our original music is composed and created  by the uber talented Ryan Adair Rooney. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. 

Emily Holloway
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