Trump Gaming the System
It is well known that Donald Trump holds very wild and erratic views on some of the key issues important in today’s political environment. However, the author of this article argues that these inflammatory views are not solely the result of a misguided man, but rather well thought-out ploys that give Trump an edge over his opponents. By reacting aggressively, Trump allows himself to play a strong role in the responses from his political rivals, such as Clinton’s. This can ultimately backfire however, since Trump needs to be able to react himself to the strategies of others, and he cannot do this if he is inclined to play aggressive. Trump also adds a degree of unpredictability into his actions, which makes his opponents’ situations more difficult, since they cannot respond to his aggressiveness with absolute certainty.
We can look at Trumps’ political gameplay through the lens of a payoff matrix like the ones we saw in class. Two possible strategies regarding an issue is to respond rationally and to respond irrationally. The payoffs can depend on the specific issue on hand, with Trump’s voters being more happy with an irrational response for example. The overall resulting political landscape depends on how the other candidate (Hillary) responds to that same issue however, and this is the basis for the payoff matrix. Hillary may want to respond rationally, since that may be the best response to Trump’s irrational response. Since Trump is usually responding irrationally, Trump is effectively forcing Hillary to respond in a certain manner, and thus he can predict (and have a degree of control over) what the overall outcome will be. By introducing unpredictability into the equation, Trump can limit Hillary’s ability to discern her best response, at the cost of a loss of control on outcome of the payoff matrix. With his methods, Trump appears to be using the tools of game theory to his advantage quite well.