FWIW, I agree that ‘factionalism’ is a far better term than tribalism. In fact, I am surprised that this has not been pointed out before—as it happens, I think I have actually been using ‘factionalism’ (and ‘faction’) consistently to mean what others on this site seem to call ‘tribalism’, although I am not going to take any credit for this. Factionalism is the accepted term in politics and political science, and the term ‘tribalism’ (also, ‘neotribalism’, or ‘new tribalism’) has other uses, for instance advocacy of small, self-contained communities (not exceeding Dunbar’s number of about 150 members) focused on a dense social network and relative egalitarianism.
FWIW, I agree that ‘factionalism’ is a far better term than tribalism. In fact, I am surprised that this has not been pointed out before—as it happens, I think I have actually been using ‘factionalism’ (and ‘faction’) consistently to mean what others on this site seem to call ‘tribalism’, although I am not going to take any credit for this. Factionalism is the accepted term in politics and political science, and the term ‘tribalism’ (also, ‘neotribalism’, or ‘new tribalism’) has other uses, for instance advocacy of small, self-contained communities (not exceeding Dunbar’s number of about 150 members) focused on a dense social network and relative egalitarianism.