How Group Identifications Have Contributed to Our National Discord

Abstract

In this article, the author first describes the role of group identifications during individual development. These include the direct familial experience and accumulated experiences in the public sphere, the introjections of adults’ prior group experiences, and the large-group experience of those in an individual’s immediate world. Next, the author identifies recent environmental changes that have altered the pathways for group internalizations. He then identifies pressures impinging on large groups, the mechanisms by which these groups regress, and the type of leader who sometimes emerges in this context. In America, Donald Trump became that leader, and he added to the division between individuals by voicing demeaning attitudes toward immigrants and Black Americans, expressing confusing messages about the COVID-19 pandemic, and promoting the idea that he won the 2020 election. The author hypothesizes that group attachment security stemming from familial experience predicts vulnerability to later extremist large-group recruitment. He describes Ashli Babbitt and her participation in Trump’s large group as such an example. Finally, the author considers corrective options given our current large-group conflict.