Game Theory and Donald Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-09/puzzled-about-republicans-and-trump-game-theory-helps
It is clear to everyone at this point that Donald Trump is an extremely polarizing presidential candidate, to say the least. We’ve reached the time in the election cycle when all of the dirty truths reveal themselves for the American public to view in disgust, and Trump certainly has quite a few of those. The thing is, though, these truths are just exactly that. The things that he has done and said in the past have always been public information available for people to view and interpret on their own. This is what makes the fact that so many of his fellow Republican politicians have endorsed him so interesting. They basically blindly followed his path regardless of whether or not they agreed with the opinions he had or the type of person he was just because he was so popular and polarizing. Of course now that so many of the things that he has said and done are flashing around out there in the public eye, politicians are beginning to negate their endorsements of him – much to the content of many voters. The only question is, why did they not refuse to endorse him from the beginning?
From a game theory perspective, it would have made sense for the other candidates to denounce him from the start and hope that another, more promising candidate would show up and win the public’s approval instead. By not doing that they basically guaranteed that Trump would get the nomination. Furthermore, now that politicians are starting to decide against endorsing him, they may seem like they only make their decisions based on what the prevailing public sentiment is (which is probably true), rather than on the merits of the candidates and the stances that they take. In the end, the politicians who first endorsed Trump and then decided to change their minds on that are the ones who most failed to play the game theory strategy. If everyone had not boarded the ship in the first place then this situation most likely would not have occured. Likewise, now that they are jumping ship the next situation that is likely to occur is a more disenfranchised voter-base and a questionable mark on the politicians’ decision making process.