Game theory versus stupidity: How the shutdown ends

Yeah, this thing is still happening.  Who's up for some game theory?

We have a class of games that repeat themselves over an indefinite period of time.  Games like War of Attrition and Brinksmanship are the canonical games you get in a basic game theory class.  In each round, players either keep playing, or quit, and try to push the other player to quit.  How do you solve a game that can keep going indefinitely, though?

The solution is actually not that complicated.  If Player 1 would be willing to push the game further, either by absorbing more loss or by risking disaster, or whatever the structure of the game creates as the bad thing everyone wants to avoid, then if Player 2 is rational, Player 2 quits in round 1.  There is no reason for Player 2 to absorb any losses, or run any risk.  He'll lose anyway, so minimize the losses.  Or, to borrow a phrase from a wise, resurrected son named Joshua, "the only winning move is not to play."

Then again, have you noticed that I have been writing rather a lot about "stupidity" lately?

Donald J. Trump, Very Stable Genius.  Also, platonic ideal of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.  We all know what he should have done, right?

So, let's apply the lesson of game theory.  This isn't quite an indefinitely repeated game.  There is an endpoint.  Let's call that endpoint, "November 3, 2020."  The shutdown won't last nearly that long, but game theory is all about bullshit hypotheticals, so let's play around with that.  It's Saturday morning, and I don't feel like doing any real work yet.  (Strange job.  The only winning move is a different career path-- one with actual weekends and vacations.)  What happens if this thing actually does last through to November 3, 2020?  Trump gets his worthless fucking ass kicked.  He would even lose to whatever pathetic, mealy-mouthed, lefty twit the Bernie people would want to nominate.  O'Rourke, or whothefuckever.  I hate to say, "Trump was right," but aren't you supposed to win before you run for president?  The stopped clock got it right on that one.

Anyway, if this actually did drag on to 2020, Trump loses.  Badly.  Remember Mondale?  Probably not.  Look him up.  He got his ass handed to him.  That'd happen.  Why?  Shutdowns are unpopular, and Trump told everyone to blame him like the "fucking moron" he is (source: Tillerson, Rex).  He would have been blamed anyway because he was the one making demands, but he told everyone to blame him.  Because he is bafflingly baffled.

Basic game theory.  He can't see this thing through 2020.

Nancy Pelosi?  (First, aren't you glad she's handling this, and not that mouth-breather, Seth Moulton?)  She'd love nothing more than to have Trump keep this up... but Trump can't... keep... it... up.  As my hero, Nancy Pelosi said, this is a manhood thing for him, and he's going to have trouble keeping his manhood... up.  Yes, he can turn on Fox News and have them fluff him, but that will only work for so long.  If Trump really does try to maintain the shutdown, Dems retake the White House.

So, what's Trump "thinking" in his, OK, we'll call it a "brain" for lack of a better term?  He's "thinking" this.  Someone has to cave.  As long as he never does, the Democrats must.  In a contest of douchebaggery, he can out-douchebag anyone.  Just say no until he wins.  It is simple-minded, and given his inability to think about anything beyond what his cultists say about him, one can understand how a short-sighted nincompoop might believe it.

Has this hold-my-breath-until-your-face-turns-blue bullshit ever worked?  Ever?  No.  Gingrich tried it in 1995-6.  Failed.  Ted Cruz forced the GOP to try it in 2013.  Failed.  There is precisely one strategic brain in the Republican Party right now.  It belongs to Mitch McConnell.  What did he say about the 2013 shutdown?  "There's no education in the second kick of a mule.  The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid 1990s."  He knew it was fucking stupid in 2013.  (That's part of why he hates Ted Cruz-- for forcing his hand.  Then again, everyone hates Ted Cruz.)  McConnell knows it's fucking stupid now.

But this is where game theory meets stupidity.  Trump can't win.  If he keeps going, he loses.  Pelosi actually, truly cannot cave here.  Speakers have been stripped of their power and removed before.  It happened to Joe Cannon in 1910.  It happened to John Boehner!  The House Democrats, as I wrote recently, are getting dumber.  They are also moving left.  The second part will prevent them from letting her cave, even if she wanted to, and she doesn't, so the increasing stupidity of the House Democratic caucus won't push them to cave.  Stupidity doesn't always work towards stupid ends.  Pelosi knows how strong her hand is, and even if she didn't, her caucus would never let her cave.

Trump, on the other (tiny) hand?  He's going to be watching poll numbers, markets and other indicators, looking for a face-saving way to cave.  And Pelosi will be torn.  What's the strategy?  Give Trump a face-saving way to cave, or rub his arrogant, racist fucking face in it?  The latter strategy prolongs the shutdown.  Pelosi will probably take the former approach because the loss itself will be sufficiently stinging.  Combine that with the basic observation that presidents depend on their bargaining reputation, as Richard Neustadt taught us in Presidential Power, and Trump's blundering has neutered himself so thoroughly here that Pelosi has his balls in her desk drawer, shriveled though they are, available to pound with a hammer whenever it suits her fancy.  Trump really did fuck this up.

There is another possibility, and it must be mentioned because it increases pressure on Trump to cave before we get there.  Look, we aren't getting to the 2020 election under a shutdown for Trump's stupid, fucking wall, and Pelosi won't cave.  The disastrousness for the GOP if the shutdown continued through 2020 would be so bad that the Democrats might get congressional Republicans to vote for funding at a high enough level to override a Trump veto.  How likely is this, in precise, mathematical terms?  The mathematical expression cannot be written in Greek letters.  We didn't develop the terminology until the English language came along, giving us the mathematical expression, "not bloody."  However, the disastrousness of a two-year shutdown would be so bad for the GOP that there would be pressure.  Enough for some congressional Republicans to cut a deal with Pelosi, and override a Trump veto.  She'd give them something that would be called "border security" to cover their asses, and make it a whole thing, but there would come a point where that would be less damaging to the party than continuing the shutdown.

Trump can't let that happen.  It would reveal his impotence too clearly.  And Pelosi can't give him any money for his stupid, fucking wall.  That Mexico was supposed to fund, back when Trump loved to tell his idiotic, fucking lies about it, which only the dumbest, and most racist motherfuckers in the country were credulous enough to believe.

What does that mean?  It means that Trump will cave.  Pelosi will probably look for some way to let him cave while saving some face.  Something called "border security," or something.  No wall funding, though.  Will she give a bunch of press conferences about how weak Trump looked when he caved, and how funny it was to watch him crumble like a cookie?  No.  Not her style.

I'll say it, though.  I fuckin' hate that guy.

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