6 ms·
The game theory of the Republican speakership crisis
- orangepurple 3y ago[flagged]
- caseyw 3y agoI wish I could buy you a beer.
- School-Cotton 3y agoWhere does this idiosyncratic definition of “republic” come from that means something incompatible with “democracy”? I’ve heard it before (always in a US context), but the more usual definition of “republic” is just “a country whose head of state is not a monarch”.
- smrtinsert 3y agoThe only context I've seen is support for gerrymandering, stripping voting rights and support for the electoral college.
- dragonwriter 3y agoIt also is a prominent defense of unequal (by population; equal by states) representation in the Senate as a desirable feature rather than a defect in the US’s Constitutional design.
- dragonwriter 3y agoI think it comes from very specific, narrow, idiosyncratic understandings of democracy (unconstrained majoritarianism, either direct or representative) and republicanism (government by elected and/or appointed magistrates each and collectively exercising well-defined, limited authority.) Its a view in which democracy, like absolute monarchy, is the rule of men, whereas republicanism is the rule of laws.
- jonhohle 3y agoYour ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
- jonathanpglick 3y agoIt's so refreshing to hear other people understand what's really happening. How can I subscribe to these rants?
- EricDeb 3y agoBut the Senate can pass a new dress code in 10 minutes.. it's amazing what they can get done if they actually want to
- dang 3y agoCould you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN, especially on flame-prone topics like partisan politics? We've already had to ask you this multiple times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36668491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36668491 (July 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29466650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29466650 (Dec 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29282769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29282769 (Nov 2021) We want curious conversation here, not denunciatory rhetoric, fulmination, putdowns etc. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd appreciate it. p.s. No, this is not a function of which political side you're on. I don't know (I don't scan the comments for that) and it's the same either way.
- anigbrowl 3y agoReally well written article, better than any mainstream news coverage I've seen in a while.
- jncfhnb 3y ago> In many cases, the Freedom Caucus actually drives policy to the left, as they leave the leadership no choice but to use Democratic votes to approve must-pass spending bills or keep the government from shutting down. But this is exactly what many Freedom Caucus members desire: by withdrawing their support for leadership, they can position themselves as true and pure conservatives. When the leadership then has no choice but to cut deals with Democrats, the Freedom Caucus can hammer the leaders in public for being weak and unprincipled. In some sense the Freedom Caucus can’t lose, because every loss is just another betrayal by the hated GOP leadership, which is often exactly what they are seeking. Interesting and probably accurate. But I think it underlines a more important point. The freedom caucus is basically an enemy faction to the mainline GOP. At some point they’re going to need to be disowned if they don’t fall in line. Probably quite soon if the orange loses the presidential run.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> some point they’re going to need to be disowned if they don’t fall in line They're still being elected by their voters. In many cases, with high approval ratings. You aren't going to mute them without addressing their districts' problems.
- jncfhnb 3y agoShrug. If they make an enemy of GOP leadership I could see a world where GOP leaderships decides it’s better to just cut them off. No more funding. No more Republican endorsement. They can just kick them out of the party. Would they be able to win elections as independents? Probably not imo.
- alextingle 3y agoThey are a tiny minority. It makes no sense for them to have any influence whatsoever. They are not really the problem. The problem is that your institutions offer no mechanism for a majority that agrees on a particular course of action to actually make it happen. Silly partisanship trumps running the country. Perhaps you need to consider secret ballots in your legislature. That would eliminate partisanship in a trice.
- DevX101 3y agoThe whole speaker situation is the first time in a while I've seen Democrats effectively use game theory principles. Michelle Obama famously said "when they go low, we go high". This, sometime called bipartisanship, is provably a losing proposition in repeated games, like politics. One of the best strategies in the iterated prisoner's dilemma is tit-for-tat, which translates to "when they go low, we go low. when they go high, we go high". The downside of this strategy though, is that you can get trapped in a suboptimal state, where both sides continually fight against each other. The best strategy is probably something like a tit-for-tat with a rare, occasional olive branch. "When they go low, we go low, but every once in a while, we'll go high to see if the offer is reciprocated".
- mauvehaus 3y agoIf the democrats had the wisdom to do so, they'd have backed McCarthy. Was he perfect (if you're a democrat)? No. Was he willing to at least keep the government from shutting down? Yes. You'd think that would be table stakes for speaker, but I digress. It's a no brainer, they'd have him McCarty the balls, Matt Gaetz looks like a jackass, and they can use the leverage they have to keep the house doing its job. Instead, we have pandemonium, no speaker, no plan to ensure the government doesn't shut down in a month, and Gaetz has something to crow about. Do the republicans look like a clown show? Sure. Is that a better overall outcome for the country than having a (barely, semi) functioning House? No (even if you're a democrat). The whole goddamn lot of the house ought to be ineligible for reelection for failing to govern.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- spencerflem 3y agoRead the article, it covers why they didn't thoroughly
- xoa 3y ago
- kibwen 3y agoMuch of the US's governance relies on politeness, the assumption of good faith, and adherence to norms. It was a system destined to fail as soon as defectors realize the power they stand to gain by deliberately bringing the system to its needs (and then blaming their opponents for it, trusting that their own constituents are too gormless to realize or care). In contrast, here's how the old Venetians elected the Doge, in a process so complex that it was presumably impossible to game to anyone's advantage: "First, thirty members of the Great Council were chosen at random. Then nine of those thirty were chosen, again randomly. Those nine members picked the next set: forty people from the Great Council. And those forty? Twelve, randomly picked from their number, moved on to the next step. Those twelve chose twenty-five; those twenty-five were randomly pared down to just nine. Having fun yet? This set of nine members chose forty-five more; eleven were picked – again at random – from those forty-five. The eleven chose forty-one members. Those forty-one (finally!) voted for the doge. There were some additional checks against skulduggery. Each noble family couldn’t have more than one member in each group, and members couldn’t vote for their own relatives. Every time a set of members voted for the next group, more than a simple majority was required: around three quarters of the voting group had to agree. (For the final election, just 25 of the 41 had to agree.)" https://generalist.academy/2020/11/06/the-election-of-the-doge/ https://generalist.academy/2020/11/06/the-election-of-the-do...
- howlin 3y agoIt's worth considering how old the US version of democracy is, and how many systems came after. Americans have a deep reverence for their personal brand, but it's worth considering they don't install their government model on countries they conquer. Japan, Iraq, Germany, etc are all Parliamentary.
- etempleton 3y agoThis often had more to do with adopting a system that has some familiarity to the conquered country. In the example of Japan, allowing an emperor as a more permanent figurehead.
- 3y ago
- smitty1e 3y agoMy snarky take is that the whole thing is a farce and the House hasn't been more than theater (in an Article I of the Constitution sense) in quite a while. There hasn't been any proper budgeting since Bush43. Among the unmet demands leading to McCarthy's ouster was lack of regular budgeting order. The House has had copious resources to do investigations out the wazoo, but it's actual, Constitutional job? No' so much. MODEST PROPOSAL: if a Congress fails to do its basic job, then none of the jackwagons sworn into that Congress (either chamber) get to run for their existing seat when next up for election. Do you Monkey Fighting job, or get some people who will.
- valar_m 3y agoWho decides if they've done their job? And what sort of objective measurements would be used to determine that?
- smitty1e 3y agoThe dozen funding bills that have been blown off since Bush43 seem a clear metric.
- skulk 3y agoThe judicial branch seems like a good candidate for this job by virtue of being a system designed to test the relationship between facts and laws. I imagine the relevant laws would have to be specified via constitutional amendment.
- dzonga 3y ago[flagged]
- callalex 3y agoI personally harbor a visceral hatred for them as well, but words lose meaning of you apply them inappropriately too often.
- alextingle 3y agoNo. He's exactly right.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoThe fundamental asymmetry in power is that the far-right group does not care if the government is functional, they're there to destroy government as much as they can, so they have leverage over anybody that does care.
- duxup 3y agoGreat article. I don’t know how anyone can lead a house GOP with a faction that opposes any compromise, demands the ability to remove the speaker at a whim, and seems to have little interest in governance generally. Seems like an impossible position. The obvious path of forming a coalition with the other party seems like the only functional way forward.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> don’t know how anyone can lead a house GOP with a faction that opposes any compromise By leading the House, not the House GOP. Perhaps we're seeing seismic activity in our two-party system's alignment.
- anigbrowl 3y agoI sure hope so. I absolutely loathe the phrase 'two party system'; it's not a system or an institution, it's just an emergent outcome of our voting mechanisms that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy while having absolutely no basis in law, statutory or precedential. Unfortunately it's become embedded in American life as to become a thought-terminating cliche (though not as used here!): mentioning it typically produced a murmur of recognitional agreement, which then serves to drain the energy out of discussing problematic or perverse electoral and legislative outcomes. This has been exploited by politicians of all stripes to evade any sort of electoral accountability and shut down any new entrants into political markets.
- dv_dt 3y agoSaying it’s not an institution ignores all the gating rules which make it harder for any but the two parties (and sometimes one party) to offer candidates; or for candidates other than those supported by an often remote party core vs more locally favored candidates.
- anigbrowl 3y agoI guess it is institutionalized, but I mean it's not formally enshrined anywhere as a policy or intended outcome, eg at the FEC. Like if you arrived on earth in a UFO or as an LLM and read all the official election documents, you might be able to infer that two parties were the most likely outcome but it's never explicitly stated.
- moomin 3y agoMy take is that the Republican Party is in such a great position of power now that splits are inevitable. To date, the famous Republican lock-step unity has been in everyone’s interest because otherwise they lose to Democrats. But if you have an insuperable advantage in most areas of government, maybe it’s time to actually argue about what you’re for. Whether they’ve chosen their moment to have this split correctly, however, is up for debate.
- xnx 3y agoHaving no speaker is also a successful situation if you don't want the government to do anything, which seems to be the preference of some Republicans.