Somewhere between the 10,000th think piece about polarization and the hundredth talk on bridging divides, a strange consensus formed: Tribalism is democracy’s deepest disease, its most persistent poison.

Professors and pastors warn of it. Columnists mourn it. Podcasters monetize their mourning. The diagnosis is always the same: Humans clustering together with their own kind is dangerous, primitive, a malfunction of the civic mind.

The people most loudly condemning tribalism tend to be surrounded by people exactly like them, at universities exactly like theirs.

Fine. But what if they’re wrong?

Not partially wrong, but actually, foundationally, embarrassingly wrong — the way doctors were wrong about bloodletting or the way everyone was wrong about cargo pants being over.

Friendship by another name

Tribalism has an image problem. Many associate it with mob violence, ethnic cleansing, and mass unrest. But that’s not tribalism. Not really. The base ingredient — people who share values and show up for each other — predates democracy, predates government, predates trousers. We used to just call it friendship.

My life runs on tribes. Boxing buddies on Tuesday mornings — punching things together turns out to be exceptional social glue. Drinks on Friday evenings with people who know my views, share my basic read on how the world should work, and will tell me honestly when I’m being an idiot. Football on Sundays: same faces, same complaints about the same referee.

These groups form through proximity, repetition, and the steady accumulation of shared in-jokes about Tom’s terrible parking. Nobody recruits anybody. The politics surface eventually, the way they always do — not as a pitch but as a mutual nod. Oh, you also think that. Good. Pass the beer.

Condescending critique

The anti-tribalism crowd conflates the existence of a tribe with hostility toward outsiders. But the two aren’t the same thing, and they don’t have to travel together. A group of friends who share values is not automatically a firing squad aimed at people who don’t. The aggression that looks like tribalism is usually something else — fear, scarcity, manipulation by people with something to gain from the mob. The tribe itself is just the group chat.

There is also something condescending baked into the critique. The implication is that enlightened people transcend their loyalties. The sophisticated move is to float above any particular community, dispensing equal approval in all directions. This person does not exist. And if people like that do exist, nobody wants to live beside them, work with them, invite them to anything, or get stuck next to them at a wedding.

The people most loudly condemning tribalism tend to be surrounded by people exactly like them, at universities exactly like theirs, publishing in the same journals, citing each other’s footnotes, all nodding along in perfect, oblivious unison. The irony apparently doesn’t register.

Tribal to the bone

My ancestors were Irish. They were tribal to the bone, tribal by necessity, tribal the way people get when the alternative is disappearance. That tribalism — stubborn, clannish, occasionally violent, always inconvenient for the people trying to govern them — is precisely what produced the independence that eventually let them leave. Seven centuries of enthusiastic British imperialism tore Ireland apart. The tribe was the solution, not the problem.

America was the same story once. The founders were a tribe. So were the suffragettes, the labor organizers, the civil rights marchers. Every movement that actually changed anything was, underneath the rhetoric, a group of people who genuinely liked and trusted each other enough to take serious risks together.

As for the loneliness epidemic affecting the country, it didn’t arrive because people had too many tribes, but because tribes became harder to build and easier to lose. Jobs moved. Cities got expensive. The bowling leagues, union halls, and neighborhood associations that once knit people into groups of mutual obligation slowly disappeared, and we got LinkedIn as a replacement.

Against this backdrop, telling people their tribal instincts are dangerous is useful the way a fire safety lecture is useful during an actual fire.

RELATED: Parents: Let your kids out to play

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Believe in belonging

What tribalism needs — contrary to the credentialed, conspicuously left-leaning, remarkably group-minded people writing op-eds about its dangers — isn’t elimination, but better PR and a little calibration.

Think of the happiest moments of your life. They almost certainly happened with the same handful of people, in the same handful of places. Some of those people aren’t around any more. That absence is its own argument — not for giving up on tribes, but for holding them closer while you can.

The alternative — atomized individuals, each navigating life as a fully independent unit, allegiant to nothing, accountable to no one — isn’t utopia. In truth, it’s just lonely, and loneliness radicalizes. Belonging stabilizes. This isn’t a controversial finding, but it’s certainly inconvenient for the people whose careers depend on pathologizing friendship.

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A former North Carolina guidance counselor faces decades in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing an underage girl, according to police. The ex-school staffer reportedly promised the victim that she would leave her family to be with her.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that an investigation was launched in February 2024 regarding accusations that a school guidance counselor was involved in an improper relationship with a student.

‘A predator was lurking behind the walls of the counseling office, waiting for a victim.’

The investigation resulted in the arrest of 31-year-old Jessica Patrick Finley, a guidance counselor and volleyball coach at McDowell County High School.

Finley was charged with eight counts of indecent liberties with a child, six counts of statutory sex offense with a child, one count of sex act with a student, and one count of offenses involving a child under the age of 15.

“In April 2025, Finley declined a plea agreement and chose to proceed toward trial,” the press release read.

On Thursday, Finley pleaded guilty to all charges in superior court.

A judge sentenced Finley to a minimum of 28 years and four months and a maximum of 40 years and six months in prison, police said.

At the time of sentencing, Finley already had served 778 days in jail, according to McDowell News.

Finley is required to pay a fine of $30,000 and register as a sex offender upon release.

RELATED: Special-ed teacher accused of sexually assaulting students in her home, giving them alcohol; 1 victim said he ‘felt trapped’

The victim — now 17 years old — explained to the court that she originally sought counseling for anxiety and depression before her relationship with Finley began, according to McDowell News.

“I was seeking help during a time when I felt alone, and she took advantage of that,” the victim said in court.

The victim knew the guidance counselor because Finley was a volleyball coach and the student played volleyball, according to McDowell News.

“A predator was lurking behind the walls of the counseling office, waiting for a victim,” the teen’s older sister said in court, adding that “a day does not go by that we do not wonder what we could have done to prevent this nightmare for my sister.”

The victim’s mother told the courtroom, “We would have beat the door hinges off that building to save her from that monster” and that “children are off limits. Period. No excuses and no exceptions.”

A sobbing Finley told the court, “I would just like to say I am so sorry for my actions and the things I have caused, for pain I have caused, for the Carter family, my family, and my own children.”

The McDowell News reported that Finley’s attorney, Christopher Rumfelt, argued that Finley was suffering from postpartum depression and having marital issues around the time of the sexual abuse.

Rumfelt conceded regarding Finley, “This will follow her until the day she dies. She understands that and accepts that.”

Officials with McDowell Public Schools confirmed to WHNS-TV that Finley resigned in February 2024, once the school district was made aware of the child sex crime allegations.

WLOS-TV obtained warrants revealing that Finley had sexual conversations through text messages with the 14-year-old student.

“Finley and (Minor Child 1) discussed details of their sexual encounters, as well as acts they wanted to perform on each other in the future,” the warrants stated.

McDowell News reported, “Finley also had phone sex with the victim on one occasion.”

The victim told investigators that Finley performed sexual acts on her on multiple occasions in Finley’s guidance counselor’s office at McDowell High School, according to WLOS.

Finley also told the underage girl that she would leave her family for her, according to warrants.

“Finley made statements to (Minor Child 1) regarding Finley leaving her husband and children to be with (Minor Child 1),” the warrants said.

The teen told investigators that she thought she was dating Finley, WLOS reported.

McDowell News reported, “The victim said she tried multiple times to stop seeing Finley. The victim said anytime she tried to stop the interactions, Finley would threaten to quit her job or kill herself.”

The news outlet added that the victim said she felt trapped by the fear of being held responsible for Finley’s death.

Shanon Smith, a captain at the McDowell County Sheriff’s Office at the time of the crimes being reported, told McDowell News that Finley’s father had been a deputy with the McDowell County Sheriff’s Office, and Finley’s mother had worked with McDowell CrimeStoppers.

With a potential conflict of interest, the McDowell County Sheriff’s Office handed over the investigation to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

McDowell Public Schools did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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A Denver-area man running for the Colorado state Senate landed in handcuffs in the Florida Keys earlier this week after his 4-year-old daughter nearly drowned in a hotel pool — while he was allegedly at the bar.

Around 7:34 p.m. on Monday, a 911 call alerted first responders that a child was drowning at a hotel pool.

‘I will work to restore parental rights where government has overstepped.’

A witness told police that a young boy, later identified as the 6-year-old son of Frederick Alfred Jr., came to him because his sister was drowning. The witness claimed that when he saw the girl, later identified as Alfred’s 4-year-old daughter, she “was unconscious and foaming at the mouth,” so he pulled her out of the pool and began CPR, Colorado Politics reported, citing a police report.

Another witness on the scene confirmed this account, police said.

Thankfully, first responders were able to revive the girl. The boy had also reportedly swallowed pool water as he attempted to rescue his sister but otherwise appeared to be unharmed.

At 7:40, Alfred entered the scene, carrying an alcoholic beverage, police claimed. Alfred explained that he left his kids at the hot tub to go grab a drink at the bar and estimated he had been gone about five minutes, police further claimed.

Alfred’s breath reeked of alcohol, and a receipt from the bar showed he had purchased two alcoholic beverages during his time away from his kids, police added.

RELATED: Long-shot Democrat candidate in Florida allegedly threatens to kill ‘two elderly victims’ — possibly his parents: VIDEO

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Though his kids appeared to be OK, first responders strongly recommended they be taken to the hospital just in case, but Alfred initially refused, reports said. After some more cajoling, Alfred eventually relented, and the children were taken to a local hospital.

At 8 p.m. that night, Alfred was arrested and booked into the Monroe County Detention Center. Jail records state that he has been charged with one count of felony child neglect and that he has an arraignment hearing on May 5.

The Department of Children and Families was notified, CBS News Colorado reported. Whether the children’s mother accompanied the family on this trip is unclear.

Originally from Florida, according to his campaign Facebook account, 38-year-old Alfred currently lives in Commerce City, Colorado, and is running unopposed for the Republican nomination for the District 21 state Senate seat. The primary is scheduled for June 30.

His campaign website lists “parental rights” first among his “legislative priorities.”

“Families not the state should guide their children. I will work to restore parental rights where government has overstepped and ensure schools partner with parents, not replace them,” the website says.

Elsewhere on the website, Alfred describes himself as a husband, a father, and the son of immigrants who wants to protect Colorado kids and parents from Democratic “policies that put government first and families last.”

“I believe in a better path for Senate District 21, one that trusts parents, supports strong energy policies that grow jobs and opportunity, and embraces innovation to secure Colorado’s future,” he adds.

Alfred did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News or from Colorado Politics, Denver7, or CBS News Colorado.

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The Senate worked overnight to advance the GOP’s budget resolution to fund immigration enforcement to the tune of $70 billion in an effort to end the Democrat-induced shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

From Wednesday afternoon to the early hours of Thursday morning, senators voted on a slew of amendments to advance Republicans’ legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection.

‘Democrats will once again demonstrate to the American people their support for open borders.’

This legislative marathon comes amid the ongoing DHS shutdown that began in mid-February. In March, the Senate approved a funding package to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP in a 2:00 a.m. voice vote, but it was rejected by the House. The House passed its own 60-day continuing resolution to fund the department in its entirety, but it was not advanced in the Senate.

The Senate budget ultimately advanced mostly along party lines in a 50-48 vote just before 3:30 a.m., with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky voting with Democrats against the immigration funding.

RELATED: Senate approves DHS funding — but there’s a catch

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) lashed out at Republicans for funding “rogue agencies,” claiming they are out of touch with everyday Americans.

“What kind of bubble are they living in?” Schumer asked. “How apart are they with people’s real needs?”

Despite the Democrats’ predictable disapproval of the funding bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) remains optimistic that the House will cooperate with the Senate to fund these key agencies. Earlier this month, both Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed on a “two-track approach” that would partially reopen DHS while funding immigration enforcement separately.

“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” a joint statement between Thune and Johnson reads. “In return, Democrats will once again demonstrate to the American people their support for open borders and keeping criminal illegal immigrants in America.”

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An American company is pushing science fiction to its limits by introducing a mind-reading product, backed by a controversial investor from India.

The product falls under the new category called brain-computer interface technology, with the investor saying he sees his product as the best path to push people into using the brain-tapping gadgets.

‘Securely and wirelessly, understands your thoughts and what you attempt to speak.’

The Silicon Valley startup is backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, an AI and software investor from Bombay State, India. The new company is called Sabi, and it is developing the Sabi Cap, a beanie that reads the wearer’s thoughts and puts them into text on a connected device.

In remarks to Wired, Khosla said that a noninvasive wearable device was the only way to get a lot of people to use the BCI technology.

“The biggest and baddest application of BCI is if you can talk to your computer by thinking about it,” Khosla explained. “If you’re going to have a billion people use BCI for access to their computers every day, it can’t be invasive.”

The technology works by using metal disks placed on the wearer’s scalp that can record their brain’s electrical activity through a technology called electroencephalography. The process is called decoding “imagined speech.”

RELATED: Is Trump’s new White House app unsafe for your security and privacy?

– YouTube

Given that the sensors on the beanie (or a planned baseball cap product) would have to work through hair, skin, and bone, the company plans on increasing the amount of sensors to piece together the required data; 70,000 to 100,000 miniature sensors per beanie have been suggested.

“Given that high-density sensing, it pinpoints exactly what and where neural activity is happening. We use that information to get much more reliable data to decode what a person is thinking,” said CEO Rahul Chhabra.

Sabi’s website describes the “brain reading” process as starting with “brain imaging” with “neuroimaging sensors.”

The company notes that it collects “a lot of brain imaging data” and maps signals into thoughts.

“Securely and wirelessly, understands your thoughts and what you attempt to speak,” the website boasts, touting how one could connect his or her brain to AI.

“AI agents do whatever you can think of. Literally.”

RELATED: Yes, smart TVs are spying on you — and one state is finally fighting back

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Investor Khosla has been vocally opposed to President Trump on his X page while having a public feud with Elon Musk, who is in the same field with his product Neuralink.

Khosla claimed that Musk wanted to make “white America great again” while saying Musk finds racism “desirable.”

This was in response to Musk stating that white people are a diminishing population.

“Vinod, you’re not just such a pompous asshole that you tried to stop the public from using a public beach near your house, you’ve also gone full retard,” Musk replied.

At the same time, entrepreneur Palmer Luckey mocked Khosla for saying that “decent whites should quit” Tesla and SpaceX and join his own company.

Khosla has also called Trump “not fit to be President” and advocated against his anti-DEI positions by championing a “dire US need” to bring in international students.

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Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick (R) introduced legislation on Wednesday aimed at turning Virginia red by offloading liberal jurisdictions back onto the District of Columbia.

D.C. was established in 1790 through the Residence Act on 100 square miles of land ceded by Virginia and Maryland to the federal government. In 1846, however, Congress passed a law retroceding “and forever relinquish[ing]” present-day Arlington County and the City of Alexandria to Old Dominion, thereby limiting D.C. to the Maryland side of the Potomac.

‘Democrats have spent years manipulating maps and boundaries to rig elections.’

McCormick cast doubt on the legality of the 1846 retrocession, noting in a release that “Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution, commonly referred to as the Enclave Clause, grants Congress authority over a federal district ‘not exceeding ten miles square’ made up of territory ceded by state governments to serve as the seat of government. The Constitution does not enumerate any power to retrocede such territories back to state governments.”

The congressman is hardly the first to question the legality of the retrocession.

Radical Republican Sen. Benjamin Wade of Ohio introduced a bill in April 1866 that would have nullified the retrocession. Wade asserted that all jurisdiction over the once-ceded territory was “vested in Congress, whose duty it was then, and forever after, to preserve unviolated and free from all control whatsoever, save that of Congress.”

RELATED: Judge BLOCKS Virginia referendum to gerrymander more Democrats into office

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Nearly a decade later, the U.S. Supreme Court broached the question of the retrocession’s legality in Phillips v. Payne without, however, ruling on its validity.

McCormick maintains that the retrocession of Arlington and Alexandria “has warped the system since then” as evidenced by the recent Virginia redistricting referendum.

Virginia voted on Tuesday in favor of adopting gerrymandered congressional maps.

If the gerrymandering campaign ultimately proves successful — a Tazewell Circuit Court judge blocked the state on Wednesday from certifying the results of the vote, and the Virginia Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the referendum’s legality next week — then 10 out of the state’s 11 congressional seats are all but guaranteed to go to Democrats.

McCormick noted, however, that by dumping Arlington County and Alexandria inside D.C.’s borders — along with their estimated 250,000 “votes that belong to Washington DC” — the political dynamic will dramatically shift in Virginia.

The City of Alexandria voted overwhelmingly in favor on Tuesday — 78.89% to 21.11% — of allowing the General Assembly to adopt the gerrymandered congressional maps. It was the same story in Arlington County, where 79.9% of voters supported the proposed constitutional amendment to adopt the gerrymandered maps.

“Democrats have spent years manipulating maps and boundaries to rig elections,” said the congressman. “The Make DC Square Again Act restores the original ten-mile-square District and ends the artificial advantage Virginia Democrats have recently gained from all the federal bureaucrats moving into Virginia.”

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​Virginia, Democrat, Blue state, Rich mccormick, District of columbia, D.c., Columbia, Make dc square again, Residence act, Retrocession, Land, Arlington county, Alexandria, Politics 

A 2006 video of Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom has resurfaced and is going viral on social media. The footage shows a 38-year-old Newsom, who was at the time the San Francisco mayor, angrily storming off during an interview after being asked about allegations that he provided alcohol to his 19-year-old girlfriend, Brittanie Mountz, at a public event.

BlazeTV hosts Stu Burguiere and Dave Landau called the video comedic gold. On this episode of “Stu and Dave Do America,” they play the clip and tear into it with hilarious, nonstop banter.

In the video, a reporter asks Newsom for comment on a recent attack of Yale students in San Francisco over New Year’s, to which he replies, “It’s a good reminder how important it is to remind our parents to be good stewards of underage drinking.”

The reporter then pivots to a San Francisco Chronicle column by Philip Matier and Andrew Ross raising questions about whether Newsom’s then-19-year-old girlfriend, Brittanie Mountz, had been drinking alcohol.

“It hasn’t been a very easy week for you, and I wonder whether you have any comment on the Matier and Ross story about the drinking?” he inquires.

“Thank you very much. That was a great cheap shot,” Newsom retorts, before storming off. As he walks away, he adds, “Just know, for the record, it’s increasingly impossible to have a conversation with you. … Just know it’s not personal when I walk by you. If you just send some other reporters, it’s going to be a lot easier.”

“Seems like a pretty rational thing for a reporter to ask, actually,” says Stu.

Dave points out that Newsom’s initial response about underage drinking was at least honest. “Gavin Newsom did say it is important to be a good steward when giving alcohol to minors, which is essentially a male flight attendant that gives alcohol to people.”

“A lot of people are saying there are some signs with Gavin Newsom’s mannerisms and behavior in that interview that indicate to some that maybe alcohol is not the only substance he may have been using at that time,” says Stu. “Would you say that’s accurate?”

Dave, who’s been very candid about his past alcohol and drug abuse, says, “As an expert, I would say yes. He is probably on cocaine.”

While the duo note that this is nothing more than “speculation,” as Newsom has never had any drug charges brought against him, they have a strong suspicion that Newsom’s behavior in the video points to “guilt.”

Dave mocks, “He’s like, ‘This is why it’s getting harder to have a conversation. People keep bringing up stuff I did to teenagers. Maybe if you didn’t bring it up, I could sit there and talk to you.”’

To see the resurfaced clip and hear more of Stu and Dave’s hilarious banter, watch the episode above.

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