I love finding a tribe.
Love it.
Whether it’s a sports team, a personality test, or a political party, there’s something deeply satisfying about belonging.
It’s human.
But the dark side to belonging is obvious. Because when there’s an us, there’s inevitably a them. And even in an innocent context, division gets in the way.
When Pottermore launched in 2011 with the Official Hogwarts Sorting Quiz, my girlfriend and I were ecstatic. We’d both grown up on the Harry Potter books, carried that fandom into early adulthood, and were ready to learn which house we belonged to.
On the big day, we set up our laptops across the bed like a game of Battleship.
Of course, I got Gryffindor.
She got Hufflepuff.
The results should have been meaningless — it was meant to be a fun online test.
But it felt good to be chosen for Gryffindor.
And I’m not proud of this, but it felt even better because she hadn’t been.
After all, if everyone gets into Gryffindor, it wouldn’t have meant anything.
And then things started to diverge.
She had spent more than a decade stocking up on Gryffindor gear — scarves, mugs, the works. So when the quiz dropped and she got sorted into Hufflepuff, it wasn’t just a label. It was a full wardrobe change.
We laughed about it, but something quietly shifted. As our shelves diverged, so did our relationship with the series.
To her, Gryffindor didn’t shine the same way. The house felt exclusive. Entitled. Its students were rule-breakers who rarely faced consequences — and when they did, it was usually at the hands of an antagonist. Sure, bravery and boldness had their place. But over time, Hufflepuff’s loyalty, kindness, and quiet strength became the virtues she claimed to prize.
Our official Hogwarts houses didn’t hurt our relationship with the books — or with one another — but they did change it.
They shouldn’t have.
But they did.
As silly as a sorting quiz might seem, the same dynamics play out in more serious arenas – like politics, economics, and public policy.
Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Democrat and Republican. Capitalist and socialist.
It’s all the same thing. It’s branding. It’s fandom.
And the forces that govern an economy — production, consumption, labor markets, public investment — don’t care about brands.
People trade. That’s naturally occurring behavior. When enough people trade, markets emerge.
Those markets are shaped by real-world forces: scarcity, abundance, climate, conflict, human innovation, human error.
These pressures push markets along various axes: privatization vs. collectivization. Free markets vs. central planning. Equality vs. inequality.
We respond by planting flags: capitalism, socialism, neoliberalism, libertarianism.
These labels can help us develop playbooks — and find communities of like-minded people.
But they also divide us.
When we get too caught up in the rightness of our beliefs or chasing ideological endgames, we lose sight of what actually moves us forward: practical, incremental work that delivers real results.
Take healthcare as an example.
Most Americans – across political lines – agree that our system isn’t working. The United States spends more per capita on healthcare than any other G7 country. What do we get for it? The worst life expectancy. Long wait times. High out-of-pocket costs.
The Socialist says: Expand access. Establish a single-payer solution. Make healthcare a universal right.
The Capitalist says: Reduce regulation, increase competition, and limit public spending.
Each side sees the other’s endgame as a threat — so we get gridlock. And when one side finally forces through a solution, the other spends the next decade trying to tear it down.
Meanwhile, people suffer.
But what happens when we set aside ideology and endgames and focus on the immediate problem: high costs and long wait times?
To me, these pain points suggest that demand for healthcare is simply outpacing supply.
Think about it – when something is expensive and hard to access, it usually means more people want it than the system can provide. We see this with housing, concert tickets, and video game consoles on launch day. Healthcare’s no different.
If patients are waiting weeks to see a doctor and we’re spending more than ever to care for our population, it’s a strong signal that the supply side isn’t keeping up.
The data backs this up: the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts America will be facing a physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036.
And supply and demand — that’s a language both fiscal conservatives and market liberals speak.
When demand outpaces supply, that signals a market opportunity, and that means there’s money to be made — which should make the capitalists happy.
And meeting that demand means expanding access to care — which should satisfy the socialists.
So why not start there? We don’t need to burn down what we have.
We need to train more doctors.
Build more clinics.
Invest in a workforce that keeps us healthy.
These aren’t radical ideas. They’re practical. They’ll work.
And it’s not just healthcare. We see the same thing in education, climate policy, and economic mobility. Urgent needs go unmet — not because we can’t solve them, but because we’ve turned ideas into identities.
If we can set the banners down, we might actually get something done.
Belonging isn’t the problem. Tribalism is human. But when the lines between “us” and “them” get too sharp, we lose sight of the fact that we’re all living in the same world — facing the same day-to-day problems.
What if we acted a little less like rivals from opposing houses, and a little more like members of the same one?
We don’t need to agree on everything to agree on something.