I did try to make the point that wanting to be part of a group was not automatically linked to any one philosophical or political belief. I’m not putting value judgements on it by saying that if you don’t share certain POVs with Democrats/Republicans then said groups will likely not consider you part of their mainstream, but may consider you “affiliated”. In the way we have various flavors of “liberal” politicians that caucus with Democrats out of such loose agreement. Or how you have (or, more recently -had-) socially liberal but otherwise traditionally Republicans who have now been outed by MAGA which has damn little to do with prior Republican agendas.
Anyway, @Jay_Z’s point is probably correct, that the political problems in the USA are made much worse (in all likelyhood) by our evolved two party system. Not that other, more representative legislatures don’t have their own problems, but the binary is very possibly the worst of all worlds. Because unlike a parliament where the need to seek alliances is often baked in, it’s a very stark US/THEM and only been getting worse.
Which, however, doesn’t have much to do with intellect. Tribalism seems to apply as a knee-jerk, often trained reflex that kicks in (for many people, myself included at times) before rational thought. And if one is intelligent, then it’s very easy to use said intellect to justify or explain your reasons for your tribal adherence. After all, you can almost always find -something- that supports your POV, especially if you stick to idealist versions (book version) of a philosophy and ignore how they work in almost all (or all, but I want to avoid nitpicking) real work examples.
Such as all our threads on Effective/Enlightened Altruism, or the current thread on the assumptions of extreme libertarianism/capitalism.