BREAKING OUT OF THE GRIM STRATEGY EQUILIBRIUM?

In a recent American Spectator commentary, Gary Anderson notes, "For the first time in the nation’s history, one political party is trying to use the law to prevent a potential presidential candidate from another party from running again. This is a very slippery slope. Biden is certainly no Caesar and Trump is no Pompey, but we are definitely headed in the wrong direction."  Mr Anderson seeks to blame the Democrats for that use of the law; perhaps it's more accurate to lay that blame off on Official Washington, with the squad-adjacent Democrats along for the ride.

It is in his continuation that the Grim Strategy arises.

I personally think Trump is a creep. I voted for him twice because I like most of his policy positions better than either of his opponents in the last two elections, and I will vote for him again in 2024 if he is running against any of the leftist loons that the Democrats will likely nominate. I hope I have better choices, but things do not look promising. However, one thing that would be good for the republic’s political health would be for the 2024 debate moderators to elicit a promise from all candidates not to prosecute their defeated opponents during the time that they are in office. The repetition of the “lock her up” chants was one of the more distasteful elements of the 2016 campaign. Yet, despite the rhetoric, Trump — to his credit — did not make a serious effort to prosecute Clinton. That has not been the case with the present administration and its party. Biden has accused Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin of using police-state tactics against his opponents. Somewhere in the Kremlin, Putin is probably giggling hysterically.

I sincerely hope that the civil war rhetoric cools down, but the current situation leaves many conservatives wondering this: “If they come after Trump, can they come after me?” Thinking Democrats should be asking the same question because what goes around has a tendency to come around.

It is already the case that Permanent Establishment types are coming after Trump-aligned Republicans.  That's the whole punish-Republicans-for-nominating-Trumpians-by-voting-Democrat, and Democrats might perceive that sentiment among more centrist Republican-leaning voters as strong enough that there will be no punishment for the Democrats pushing the margin of Manchin and Sinema (and anonymous others in the Senate) to get as much of the Squad agenda into law as is practicable.

I speculated about that in a different set of circumstances.

[Robby Soave's] call would be correct if the social norm was that nobody does this kind of thing.  But when the principle is honored only in the breach, and a long train of abuses and usurpations by the cancel culture of the left signifies a desire to subject anyone who disagrees to absolute despotism, that principle is no longer valid.  We are in a grim strategy situation, and it's clear to the culture warriors that offering the other cheek no longer elicits cooperation.  Restoring the old social norms of disagreeing without being disagreeable is going to be difficult.

Think about the situation this way, dear reader.  In Wisconsin, the incumbent Trumpian senator, Ron Johnson, is facing the squad-adjacent former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes.  Are the Never Trumpers, whether with a big platform like Charlie Sykes, or the voters calling in to Milwaukee radio, really going to vote for the squad agenda simply to send the Trumpians a message?  Moreover, how easy might it be for what goes around to come around?  Centrist voter of any partisan affiliation: is it the January 6 unpleasantness that led to higher gas prices, to peanut butter and baby formula being missing from the stores?  Why not vote Republican until the Democrats stop nominating squad-adjacent candidates?  That works in my district in Illinois: after the redistricting, the squad-adjacent incumbent faces a conventional Republican.  Vote Republican.  It gets more interesting in the gubernatorial election, where the corona tyrant incumbent faces a Trumpian Republican.  The most effective way to stop the corona tyranny might be to vote the Republican in, although the breakdown in cooperation that follows will not be pretty.  So it always goes in grim strategy situations.

The Grim Strategy is apparently a blunt instrument for humans with long memories.  "Our findings suggest that in this framework even relatively simple pricing algorithms systematically learn to play sophisticated collusive strategies. The strategies mete out punishments that are proportional to the extent of the deviations and are finite in duration, with a gradual return to the pre-deviation prices."

At the moment, there are plenty of things Democrats have done that call for massive punishment.  Bear in mind, dear reader, that Grim Strategy outcomes are outcomes in which both the punisher and the punishee wind up in a worse place than they would be in either the repeated Nash or the cooperative outcome.  That's what a "tendency to come around" looks like.