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So blue tribers are retreating to their enclaves, and red tribers to theirs, while the grey folks (I love you, boo kiss) are rather being forced to pick a side. Scott Alexander, for all his criticisms of the left's approach to the culture war, is a polyamorous atheist living in the Bay Area; of course his allegiance is to the blue tribe, even if by their standards he's a heretic.

I grow increasingly confident about my claim that insofar as the color tribes exist, the gray tribe surely doesn't. It's just "blue tribe", expect, basically, super duper blue every which way. Not just urban, but chiefly concentrated in the citiest cities available. Not just secular but - as a rule - atheist/agnostic expect with a surprising interest in Eastern religions. Not just living in a post-Sexual-Revolution culture, but one big polyamorous cuddle pile. And so on.

The thing is, precisely, that the "gray tribe" is so super blue it actually alienates them from "regular" blue tribers, making them the folks that your regular middle class liberals can point to and laugh: "Whoa, look at those weirdoes!" Lots of commentary like that when people have discussed the FTX scandal, for instance. It's this alienation that frees them from the comfy social sphere that underlays the blue tribe attachment to general blue politics, taken as what all smart and moral people obviously believe as a matter of course, and leads them to potentially explore other political ideologies and avenues. (Of course, that's not the only necessary factor, there's plenty of weirdoes who largely stick with some version of more conventional blue politics.)

The grey tribe is definitly more red-accomodating than the wider blue tribe. I am a Christian, and rationalist-adjacent spaces are pretty much the only space where I sometimes feel like fencing against atheists and doing a very mild form of proselytising, in other blue tribe circles that would be pearls before swine. (Matthew 7:6)

take a look at the subredditoverlaps for SSC.

Yes, samharris and redscarepod have strong blue tribe identity at x63.78 and x17.64 respectively. But there is also truechristian (right wing christian sub) at x10.67, jordanpeterson at x8.58 and catholicism at x6.52. For not explicity Christian red tribe associated subs there are lockdownscepticism at x10.42 and goldandblack at x7.20. Also stuff like menslib at x11.54 and moderatepolitics at x8.54. Neoliberal at x10.00. Classical right wing reactionaries are underreprestented, but there seem to be quite a few conservative Christians, classical liberals, neoliberals and centrists around next to the blue tribers in the grey tribe (although neoliberals are probably blue tribe, hard to tell since left wingers hate them so much).

Neoliberal I wouldn’t include with red tribe spaces. That sub is full fledge Democrat establishment now. It’s not your Milton Friedman neoliberalism. It’s basically Hillary Clinton supporters who are online too much,