Here’s how game theory helps explain Donald Trump’s strategies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/17/heres-how-game-theory-helps-explain-donald-trumps-strategies/
This article from Washingtonpost attempts to interpret Trump’s election strategy using game theory. It starts by evaluating that Trump has lasted so far in the election partly because he combined ambiguity, as Game Theory deemed useful, with straight-on confrontation.
According to the article, there are three elements of Trump’s Game Theory Strategy. Firstly, Trump wielded unpredictability really wisely. In the situation where each side is waiting anxiously till other side commits, game theory suggests that people should hold a cloud of unpredictability that stalks opponents. Trump achieved this by refusing to answer whether or not he would utilize nuclear weapons to stop terrorists.
As the second one was on some level unrelated to game theory, the third element provides a perfect example for it. Trump took extreme positions upon a ton of issues, and thus, as Game Theory suggests, these actions force his opponent to respond to it in an almost flustered manner.
Even though Trump’s example is somewhat remotely related to Game Theory’s true scientific application, yet it still matches the core underlying values of it. Of course, Trump’s applications do not make sense all the time, yet we hope that he would get more and more strategic in the future.