Donald Trump and the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma
The rise of Donald Trump’s campaign has baffled many on both sides of the political spectrum. Regardless of what you think of him, nobody, including himself, would have ever expected that he’d make it far enough to have a very real chance of winning the presidency. It seems as if the strategies and rhetoric used by Trump’s campaign would have destroyed anyone else’s political career. Yet, incredibly, they have only further galvanized his voter base. While the fate of the election is still up in the air, it’s nonetheless important to take a deep look at Trump’s tactics not only to understand him, but to potentially understand the impact his actions will have on future campaigns.
Throughout Trump’s presidential run, he frequently employed a game theory strategy known as “Tit for tat”. This type of strategy is seen in a variation of the prisoner’s dilemma known as the ‘iterated prisoner’s dilemma’, in which the dilemma is run multiple times. In Tit for tat, the player first acts cooperatively, (aka remains silent), and then mimics their opponent’s previous choice on subsequent runs. While Trump isn’t always initially cooperative with his opponents, both political or otherwise, he’s always up to punch back. Many times, this has brought Trump a great deal of success. In fact, his relentless counterattacking is a major reason why he was able to take down many of his opponents in the primary. His opponents learned very quickly that getting in Trump’s way meant getting struck down by a barrage of insults – a tactic which ultimately destroyed the campaigns of a number of candidates. Nevertheless, Trump has received flak for this strategy when retaliating against the wrong people. Criticisms of Trump’s behavior was seen recently when he went after the Gold Star family who spoke at the DNC, as well as numerous other unjustified attacks and overreactions to an ever growing list of victims.
On the other end of the spectrum, those in agreement with Trump, are treated nicely in return. This reward system is no better illustrated in Trump’s bizarre friendship with Vladimir Putin. After Putin’s remarks of admiration towards Trump late last year, Trump has been nothing but kind to Putin, going as far as to include healthier relations with Russia as a platform in his campaign. It seems like Trump has the whole world divided into “Best Friends” or “Mortal Enemies” based solely on their last interaction with him.
It would be unfair to dumb down Trump’s entire campaign to a single strategy (Trump has proven to be a bit more unpredictable than this), but there’s still value in trying to take apart what exactly makes the guy tick. It wouldn’t be surprising if other elements of game theory exist in not only his campaign, but the campaigns of his opponents.
Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-game-theory-tells-us-about-donald-trump-20160511