A Political One
In a slightly outdated but ever relevant Washington Post article published during the 2016 presidential campaign, Steven J. Brams, a professor of politics at NYU, tries to determine strategies Trump is consciously (or unconsciously using) to always seemingly grab the upper hand in the election’s political climate. He begins by stating, “there are conditions when it is rational to be ambiguous, and conditions when it pays to be confrontational.” It was a seemingly poignant summary of Donald Trump in one sentence if there ever was one. However he goes beyond this, and begins relating these characteristics to game theory. I saw this article back when it was published, but thought little of it until the topic came up in class. What are the dominant strategies in politics? Do those even exist? The argument Professor Brams poses does not go as far to say Trump has discovered a dominant strategy. It simply argues that the behavior exhibited during the presidential race: the policy stances, the outbursts, the insensitivity, could all be drawn back to extremely logical choices in game theory despite how illogical they seemed at the time and continue to be to this day. Brams characterized Trump’s behavior in 3 ways, namely, that he exhibits randomness, can be irrational, and forces himself into strong seemingly outrageous positions without a clear reason. All these behaviors he argued, can be tied by back to logical game theory strategy, and more than that, he could prove it. Me, a skeptical young networks’ student thought, these can’t be tied back to game theory. We’d learned about all parties acting in their best interests, predicting opponents’ strategies, and always selecting the most logical solution, so how could something so contradictory at all make sense?
Well, Brams argues, Trump plays on a knife’s edge. He works by selecting strategies that offer greater reward but also greater risk. Let’s start with unpredictability. Brams argues that in any game theory scenario where outcomes are interdependent, a viable strategy is randomness. I respond to what I believe you’ll choose in your best interests, and vice versa. But what if, for the sake of argument, I didn’t know what outcome I’d pick? How could you react if I was truly random. It’d be impossible to accurately predict an outcome and always end up on top, the variability and randomness makes it near impossible, and therefore run the scenario enough and sure, I may lose a few times, but I’m sure to eventually gain a high payoff at your expense. Now we move on to irrationality, the portrayal of yourself as a madman who is willing to risk it all, even at your own expense or the expense of both parties, just to get the upper hand. To opponents, you begin changing their behavior as outcomes they previously considered inconceivable they must now weigh and consider, giving yourself an advantage. Finally, the strong outrageous positions. “Build a wall” at every rally, the mass deportation of millions, the list goes on and on. Were any of them ever possible? In today’s world, now I’m not quite sure. But these outlandish positions force people to respond. The media, your opponents, even members of your own party are forced to come out. This, Brams argue, is the strength in this strategy. It’s a game of chicken in which opponents who engage risk being destroyed and brought down to your level (insert Rubio small hand comment here), and where each provocation met unchallenged strengthens the image of the candidate. I was fascinated to see Brams tie these behaviors to logical reasoning. It seemed almost like an oxymoron. However reasoning through it made the strategies seem clearer and clearer and actually begin to look advantageous in many scenarios, especially with opponents playing on a different set of rules & boundaries as you (old political decorum). While these strategies certainly aren’t without risk, it seems that through game theory, one can see they all can be explained logically, however I offer no guarantees the man in the Oval Office knows this.