I may be able to explain the Republicans

Great Debates
1

(This OP is adapted from a post on my blog, which includes visuals.)

Lately a lot of people have been wondering about the strange behavior of Congressional Republicans. I do not mean their belief that lower taxes and less government spending are good. This is an entirely defensible set of beliefs, regardless of whether one happens to agree with it. When I say “strange behavior”, I mean the tactics that they’ve been using in the past six months or so. Not compromising in even the smallest degree, offering a budget that’s political suicide, and seriously suggesting the idea of defaulting on federal debt.

I think that to understand what the Republicans are doing, you have to look at a game theory scenario called ‘The Battle of the Sexes’. We can set up the current budget negotiations as a game theory scenario. The players are the Republicans and the Democrats. Each side can choose to either hold strong to its position or cave in. We determine payoffs as follows:

If both sides hold strong, there’s a debt default, catastrophic for both sides but slightly worse for the Republicans because the public will blame them more. Republicans: -100 Democrats: -80

If the Republicans hold strong and the Democrats cave in, the Republicans get what they want, namely big spending cuts with no tax hikes. Republicans 5, Democrats -2

In the reverse scenario, payoffs are reversed. Republicans -2, Democrats 5

If both sides cave in, both sides get some but not all of what they want. Republicans 0, Democrats 0

It’s much easier to visualize if you read the blog post, but the end result is that this ‘game’ becomes a version of the Battle of the Sexes scenario in game theory. Now, one interesting facet of that scenario is that from a psychological perspective, it’s to each player’s advantage to be seen as unwilling to change one’s mind. If the other player thinks that you won’t even consider caving in, they’ll be more likely to cave in rather than risk the outcome where both sides hold strong. In the particular game based on the budget negotiations, the consequences of a ‘double hold strong’ are so severe that nobody could sanely consider the possibility. Hence, if the Republicans want to play the game with the appearance of being totally obstinate, they also have to appear to be nuts. And if we assume that they’ve had this moment in mind ever since the last election, the thesis that they’re trying to make others think that they’re nuts would account for their behavior this year.

Admittedly the scenario I’ve outlined is crude and the payoffs I used are arbitrary, but I believe that in general principle it captures what’s happening in the present political moment.

2

I think the Democrats have already caved, so to speak, by expressing a willingness to limit tax increases and make giant cuts in medicare.

OTOH, I think if both sides cave, and compromise, that actually hurts the Republicans. If the Republican leaders in congress compromise at all, they then have to face angry republican voters, who’ve talked themselves into believing that compromise is worse than defaulting on our debt. It opens those Republican voters up to primary challenges from extremist conservatives playing the “I’m right-wingier than thou” game.

I’m starting to think Obama’s been bluffing this whole time, hinting at medicare cuts and so on, counting on the Republicans to go on chanting, “No Compromises!” In the end, he can issue some emergency executive order and say, “Clearly, the Republicans aren’t serious about economics or governing.”

If the Republicans refuse to budge at all - I don’t think it’s going to be just slightly worse for them. I think the Democrats have done a good job of demonstrating their willingness to work something out. But compromising creates different problems for the Republicans, internally.

No cites, just an impression I have.

3

I think your argument has some validity, ITR champion. Two comments.

  1. A key question is how players evaluate their payoff. We’d like to hope that Congressmen ultimately want what’s best for their country, but I doubt this is true in many cases. They want what’s best for their Party, or for them personally, country be damned.

  2. Nixon famously used the “pretend to be crazy” tactic in his approach to Vietnam. I don’t know what the best on-line write-up on this is, but here’s a link which appears via Google.
    (wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ff_nuclearwar)

4

I don’t have a response to the political part of the OP, but I think Chicken more closely matches described payoff matrix.

5

My take is that the Republicans are doing exactly what they’ve publicly vowed to do for years- “starve the beast”. They may not be just pretending to be crazy. If you really believe that the cancerous growth of a para-socialist welfare state will inevitably destroy the nation if not halted, then it becomes possible to justify default as the lesser of two evils, or at least it brings the crisis to a head now before it gets any worse.

6

The Republicans held both houses of Congress and the Presidency not too long ago. An EXCELLENT opportunity to starve the beast without risking economic catastrophe. Yet somehow, they did no such thing, in fact, Bush made the beast BIGGER and fed it MORE. They seem most intent on starving the beast when Democrats govern. Why, it would lead a reasonable person to doubt their sincerity on this issue, it would.

7

The idea was discussed in Reagan’s time but it is off the table now: The GOP has a strong streak of millennialism. After the Christian tradition of focusing on Armageddon and the world to come, conservatism has a certain heritage (now mostly unspoken) of courting the endtimes, of not caring what happens on a human timescale so that society may be perfected according to the will of Og, the military-industrial combine, or some combination thereof. I’m sure deep down in places they don’t talk about, certain Congressional Republicans would happily destroy the village to save certain parts of it.

8

ITR Champion, the usual term for the game theory scenario that you describe in the OP is the Prisoner’s Dilemma, not the Battle of the Sexes.

9

I dunno, the Prisoner’s Dilemma described a benefit for the parties if they cooperate.

10

It’s hard to negotiate when you’ve convinced your constituency that your opponent is a traitor, socialist who is worse than Hitler. Who wants to be seen compromising with Hitler?

11

Stalin was okay with it, early on.

12

It ignores who they work for. The Repubs may well understand the potential damage holding the line will cause, but there must be a future payoff involved.All the Repubs can not believe letting the ceiling stay where it is, will be painless. Can they trust the rich to take care of them in the future? Apparently they believe they can.

13

They are the rich. Trust that they will take care of themselves in the future!

Or were you talking about the rank and file? They do what they are told. It’s the fundamental difference between the base on the right and the base on the left. Since the leadership on the left cannot be assured of goodwill from its base even when some progress is made, yet the alternative to its base is so abhorrent, the leadership feels free to run to the center to capture the vanishing ‘moderate’.

The leadership on the right can be assured of goodwill from its base by issuing orders–in fact, it increases it. Their very power is based on the top-down worldview of its constituency’s tendency to fall in line and support what they are told to support. Dominance displays are all-powerful amongst the authoritarian-inclined.

14

The repub vision of America is cold hearted to those not on top. They will gut Medicare, Medicade, Social Security and any other programs that help those not rich. They want to slash them and privatize what is left. That allows those on top to make lots of money off the programs and provide bad or disputed care, like the medical system in this country.
By most peoples standards, the congressmen and senators are doing quite well. To the rich they are employees.
The long term vision is scarier. They are fighting hard to increase the wealth flowing to the top. Big money is different than just being rich, it confers political power to those who hold it. As the rich get richer, they will set their sights on the next target. They will clamp down on doctors and lawyers eventually. They see no reason to pay good wages to workers when they do not have to. They do not have to.
The rich will eventually be kings.

15

They didn’t hold a voting majority and used earmarks to buy votes from Democrats. And they were soundly criticized for doing it and that led to the tea party.

16

They’ll take my democractic republic from my cold, dead hands. Which may be hard to do, considering that it’s our job to make corpses of them before they get the chance to finish their fascist plans.*

*Note to Homeland Security–this is hyperbole taking advantage only of First Amendment rights, not an incitement to violence. Go bother someone bringing their guns to ‘political rallies’ if you want to fight a real threat.

17

I guess you missed the President’s speech today where he admitted those cuts were necessary to keep the programs running.

18

The President is a centrist, and either acknowledging the current political reality along with the economical situation… or is being a pud. Either way, appeal to authority does not really make as large an impact here in moonbat nation.

For example, are the cuts necessary if the defense budget is slashed by half?

19

That was political speak. The proof comes in what programs are seriously offered after the debt ceiling is taken care of. The Dems think it would be a disaster for Americans if the ceiling is not raised. I believe most Repubs know it, but are willing to risk it for some political advantage or perhaps some financial advantage. McConnell did say his job is to make sure Obama is a one term president. I thought the scope of his job was much bigger than that.
Obamacare is saving us money now. But the best parts will not be in place for a couple years. The health care insurers are desperate to get Obama out and kill Obamacare.It is all about money.
Obama has caved to the Repubs many times in order to keep the country on some kind of upward trajectory. this is not new. The Repubs will do everything they can to destroy the economy to get Obama out.

20

Here is my problem with the payoff in the OP. With the 2 party system we have, politics is in effect a zero-sum game. Let’s put the scoring as number of seats gained or lost and let’s say Reps are currently at a -3. If we assume that a motion to impeach Obama on violating the War Powers Act will cost the Reps an additional 40 seats the score would be Reps -43 which would put Dems at +43. The only way a score could be Rep -4, Dems -3 would be if an action costs the Republicans 4 seats and the Democrats 3 seats which means 3rd parties/independents pick up 7 seats.