Time for another edition of "Politics in Plate Mail," where I talk about gaming and politics. Check out Wreck List if you are interested in joining a fun World of Warcraft guild populated by Daily Kos members. Today's post is not about World of Warcraft for a change, however...
I'm not a serious competitive gamer. Oh, I like playing against other people well enough. I won some trophies in high school debate and chess, I've had some enjoyable online victories in real-time strategy games like Starcraft, I enjoy a little Team Fortress 2 now and again, and I even enjoyed sampling the Warcraft arena. But I like to play a games only as long as they're fun, and the guys who play in professional tournaments are out for blood. I kind of admire what they do, but that's just not me.
Politics is a blood sport, and there are a few lessons I think Democrats could learn a few things from people on the competitive gaming circuit. And I'll go over these things... below the fold.
Meet the Scrub
In previous diaries I've mention an online book called "Playing to Win," and now I want to start taking a deeper look at it. In particular, the first essay introduces a kind of game player called a "scrub."
A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.
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Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play "for fun" and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they’ll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite subtle and difficult to discover. Knowing the counter tactic prevents the other player from using his tactic, but he can then use a counter to your counter. You are now afraid to use your counter and the opponent can go back to sneaking in the original overpowering tactic.
There are a lot of video game details listed in this essay, but let me see if I can explain this in terms of a game everyone knows: Rock-Paper-Scissors.
The first paragraph above mentions that scrubs make up self-imposed rules, so let's suppose that the scrub in question does not like rocks. He says "Okay, let's play rock-paper-scissors, but I don't want you to use rock, because I think that is an unfair tactic."
How would you play the game if you were such a scrub? In your own mind, playing rock is off-limits. The only choices available are paper and scissors. Therefore, assuming you are rational in all other ways, you should always play scissors. Always. After all, if you play scissors, you can only win (against paper) or tie (against scissors). On the other hand, if you play paper instead, you can only tie (against paper) or lose (against scissors). There is never a situation where playing paper is better than playing scissors. So you'd be foolish to play paper.
Now let's assume you are not the scrub, but you are playing against someone whom you know to be a scrub with a mental rule against rock. What should you do?
The answer: Always play rock. You already know that the scrub won't play paper, because he believes that rock is off-limits. But it isn't. Within the real rules of the game, rock is a perfectly legitimate choice. It doesn't matter what one player's personal preference is; unless the rules of the game are actually changed, you can play rock. The scrub will say "That's not fair!" or "That's cheap!" because he wants you to live by his rules, not the real rules. But name calling doesn't matter; if you play rock against him, then you win.
Now at this point the scrub has a few choices available. One is to throw up in his hands in frustration and refuse to play the game anymore. He may conclude that the game of rock-paper-scissors is inherently unfair because he can't fight this unbeatable "rock" thing; or he may conclude that he "really" won because you "cheated" by playing rock. Another option is to try and lobby for a rule change, hoping that other players will join him in playing "paper-scissors" or something else he likes better.
But there are other options that lead to self-improvement instead. One such option is to say "Okay, I can't figure out how to beat rock, it seems pretty bulletproof to me. So I guess I'll always play rock so that I'll always win." If he does this, he'll find the good player switching up tactics, playing paper more frequently in anticipation of the scrub's rock. At this point, if the weaker player is smart, he'll recognize the pattern. He'll say "Oh! Now I understand how to beat rock!" Then, if the enemy player plays rock, he'll play paper. Now he knows all the rules, he knows some new tricks for beating the better player, and hopefully he's no longer a scrub. Now he's playing to win.
But I thought you said this was about politics...
Oh yeah. Well, there are a bunch of examples I could bring up at this point, but the most obvious and relevant one is the recent history of the filibuster.
Back in 2005, Republicans held a majority of the Senate by a count of 55-45. The mere suggestion of a filibuster by the Democratic minority was enough to cause majority leader Bill Frist to threaten to end the filibuster permanently, using the "nuclear option," a term coined by Trent Lott (R-MI).
Democrats complied. Not only did they comply, but they immediately started getting browbeaten to stop using the term "nuclear option" -- it proved unpopular, so Republicans insisted that everyone describe it as the "Constitutional option" instead.
What a difference a power reversal makes. Now that the Democrats are in power, suddenly it's presumed to be the ordinary state of things for every bill put forth to be met with a filibuster. "Of course every bill requires sixty votes! That's the way it's always been done!" Republicans have threatened more filibusters in the last year alone than in any other two-year Congressional period in history. And for some reason, proposals to end filibustering are once again known as the Nuclear Option.
It's painfully obvious that these are not people who are playing to win. They are living with a set of self-imposed rules that are not part of the real game. Look at it this way: Holding a vote for a bill which will probably pass is scissors. Filibustering the bill is rock. The nuclear option is paper. Okay, it's not a perfect analogy. It's more complicated than that because there are more options, including "Force an actual filibuster involving all-nighters" and "Make it politically dangerous to support the bill." You can visualize this as a complex network of decisions which lead to victory or defeat depending on what you play and what the opponent plays. Rock-paper-scissors is simply one way to visualize what this network might look like.
During any given Congressional session, Republicans basically announce the new rules to suit their convenience. "From now on," they announced when they were in the majority, "Playing rock (filibustering) is against the rules. Any party which attempts to use such a dirty, low down tactic as filibustering will be mocked, derided, and called a filthy cheater. And plus, we'll play paper (the Constitutional Option), which is unbeatable. You guys cannot win."
Now you might be thinking here that "Oh, Republicans are scrubs! They're making up new rules that aren't part of the game!" But no... Republicans are declaring the rules, but they have no intention of following the rules. It's the Democrats who follow these phony rules that are not part of the real game. In truth, the Republicans were using a tactic that is also part of the game, but that Democrats simply don't understand properly. That tactic is "political browbeating," which is yet another technique that many Democrats probably consider too "cheap" to use.
So Democrats take over the majority and -- lo and behold! -- suddenly Republicans are playing game master again. "Wait, new rules. In this Congress, anyone can filibuster. But countering the filibuster by playing paper (the Nuclear Option) is henceforth off limits. Only a no-account rotten varmint would even suggest such a thing." And once again, Democrats diligently try to follow the artificial rules like good little scrubs.
How to stop being a scrub
The way out of this trap is real simple: stop listening to the Republicans. They're the ones who are playing to win, and they're doing it through psychological tricks which are perfectly legal in this game.
As above, a smart player doesn't simply give up in frustration; he learns from the example of his opponent. As soon as Democrats entered office the first order of business should have been to say: "Okay, these Republicans just kicked us around for the last several years via political browbeating. We should do that too." Then they should have held a press conference saying "Our Republican colleagues have kindly set the rules by saying that filibustering is illegitimate. We see how smart they were now, and we fully intend to exercise the Constitutional Option if they try to block the people's business."
If that works, great. It's an unbeatable strategy. You win. But if it doesn't work, well then... the Republicans have a viable counter-move. Try to beat that counter however you can, but above all: The next time you're in the minority, Democrats, you'd damn well better remember what they did to beat you... AND DO IT!!!!!
That's how players get better. There's no magical oracle who can tell you how to play flawlessly every time. The only person who will teach you to play the game is your opponent.