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Can Progressives Prevail?
The Game Must Be Played
NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.
A fellow named Trygve Olson once published a list of seven rules for rescuing liberal democracy from the clutches of authoritarian rule. While I have not verified his bone fides (He’s with The Lincoln Project and they are not friends of liberals.), his first rule seems to effectively highlight a basic deficiency in the Democratic Party strategy: Play the Game You Are In. Politics is understood as a game in the technical sense. It is analyzed, by the wise, in terms of game theory. The Republicans are now playing a game of strategy that exploits inherent deficiencies in the human mind and the U.S. Constitution. The game pieces are voter pools. Now, we might suggest that politicians are also game pieces but I believe that is a dangerous misunderstanding.
We may say that the game piece in an automobile race is the automobile, but the actual game piece includes the driver and crew. The automobile is a replaceable component of the game piece. If it is wrecked, a new car will be constructed by the engineer and mechanics and the driver will pilot that new creation. The players are the wealthy automobile companies and hedge funds that own the teams. They select the game pieces.
