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We broadly know tribalism is on the rise, and obviously tribalism is inherently about “us” vs. “them.” (So is most of life, but I’ll gloss that over for the time being.) Say the words “critical race theory” to two people of two different ideological persuasions and you will get two drastically different responses, and some of the response will be about how “the other” is “ruining” everything. A big argument in tribalism is “they’re trying to change my way of life,” which is a process whereby one side is framed as “the enemy.” Clearly this whole “must have an enemy” thing is relatively important.
Before we get into the workplace side of defining enemies, there’s a curious other example I sometimes run into. A lot of child-bearing-aged women tend to dislike me, in part because sometimes I post stuff on Facebook like “Baby showers for a second child are ridiculous,” and to some women, I literally just created World War 3 with that comment. (Must have an enemy.) What I’ve noticed over time is that sometimes, if a dude needs a quick win in his relationship, he will roll on me for something, because that aligns him and the wife. This has actually happened to me four times, including about 1.5 weeks ago. Ted as common enemy = marriage boosted. So it works at the relational level too.
