As I listened to the State of the Union address on Tuesday, it was easy to visualize the current sad state of the rest of the world. The hideous, intractable, difficulty facing the world today is TRIBALISM. Tribalism in all its unfortunate manifestations has by now become so universal as to make constructive human interaction almost impossible. Sunni/Shiite, Tutsi/Hutu, commie/capitalist, you name it, like oil and water they just don’t want to mix, even if doing so would greatly benefit both sides. You see it in American politics where Republicans, in their zeal to discredit Democrats, consistently act in ways that do damage to everyone, including themselves. Tribal loyalty trumps (there’s that word again) the common good. Even the word “common” is anathema because it is too close to “communism”. We cannot do much about tribalism elsewhere, but if we don’t get the Republicans to start putting the common good ahead of their political agenda, things will only get worse for most Americans.