I don’t think the USA ever was a single integrated society. It’s always been a network of interconnected sub-societies.
Somewhat, but I think that’s overblown. I’ll say more on that, but first “my tribe”. Catholic, southern mountain American of European descent who, despite having no English ancestors, treasures the English language.
I believe there are politicians who, for their own purposes, want to divide Americans into tribes so they can appeal to the narrow interests (as perceived or artificially imposed) of those sub groups and to their prejudices.
But I also think it’s largely artificial and extremely bad. Now, I think everybody who thinks in “tribal” terms would consider American blacks to be a “tribe”. But how much of a tribe are they really? They speak English. The read the same histories everybody else does. They do essentially the same things everybody else does. They dress the same, pretty much. They eat the same food pretty much. They want the same kinds of houses. They mow their lawns just like the rest of us do to get that “English country manor” look. They’re nearly all Christians. How much of a real “tribe” is that? In west Africa they would just be considered Americans and (due to more admixture than most think) most would be considered “white”.
Hispanics, then? Sure, Cuban-Americans in Florida have some music and some dishes peculiar to them, though others have adopted some of it. They speak English, go to the same schools, etc, etc, etc. If you met a Marco Rubio on the street would you think he belongs to a different “tribe”? No, you wouldn’t.
Non-Cubans, then, perhaps? Well, I have known Mexican-Americans with Texas “white man” accents, and Oklahoman Mexican-Americans that have that “cowboy” sound peculiar to people living west of Tulsa. There are millions of Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics who really and truly have “blended in” to the society as a whole. Sure, this family prepares a “truly” Mexican dish (not Tex-Mex, that’s American) Some struggle to keep the younger generation from completely losing Spanish as a language. But by and large, they do the same things the rest of us do.
Poles? Russians? Macedonians? In one generation they’re more like me than they are like people from the “old country”.
But perhaps the most imperiled thing that keeps there from being “tribes” in America is the concept that there is a rationally-founded, objectively meritorious means of government and mores outside myself that must be followed. Politicians, as I said, try to “tribalize” us into subjective ways of viewing what government ought to be doing and how we ought to act.
