Donald Trump’s Unpredictability And Game Theory
https://www.salon.com/2019/09/20/donald-trump-and-game-theory-expert-says-no-brilliant-3-d-chess-is-involved/
President Trump is well-known for his unpredictable and even impetuous political moves. Though the public used to criticize his unprecedented method of leading a country, more people have started to view Trump’s unpredictability as a maneuver. In this article, NYU game-theory scholar Steven Brams categorizes Trump’s bold actions as playing Game Theory, in particular, playing a zero-sum game.
A zero-sum game is defined as “A situation in which one person’s gain is equivalent to another’s loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero.” In Brams’ opinion, Trump’s zero-sum game is not suitable in a political setting, for it leaves minimum room for negotiation. This strategy did benefit our nation in certain cases economically, however, its extremeness also leads to Trump’s volatile decisions when Trump fails his zero-sum game. According to Bram, Trump’s unpredictability undermines his trustworthiness, even among his allies, which then becomes a notably weakness of him. Though Trump’s achievement is debatable, but he did start a new era of employing unpredictability sharply in politics, tearing off mannered actings. Boris Johnson is such a good example.