A criticism of instincts to "go low" when combating political opponents

Democratic political operatives seem increasingly drawn to Trump-like approaches

I got another op-ed out today, titled, “Democrats shouldn’t succumb to the temptation to ‘go low’ against Trump.” It’s my second op-ed for TheHill.com.

When we’re in a serious conflict, I think often we’ll have a hard time distinguishing between our instincts on how to behave (which draw us to more aggressive, belligerent approaches) and our intellectual beliefs about the best strategic approaches.

Put another way: I think political operators will often genuinely believe they’re being smart and strategic by embracing high-aggression, high-insult approaches — and will fail to see they’re mostly just acting how they want to act. That’s a theme that I focus on a good amount in How Contempt Destroys Democracy: that our instincts when in conflict often lead us to unintentionally behave in ways that amplify the conflict.

And on top of all that, a highly polarized system will inevitably grant more power to the most polarized and polarizing people. To be specific: as a group grows more angry and fearful, people like Rick Wilson, who adopt and promote an insulting “go low” strategy will increasingly hold more power… while people who argue for more depolarizing and persuasive approaches will hold less power.

Also, many liberals/Democrats will see my arguments as naive and milquetoast. That’s just another function, in my opinion, of how conflict leads us to embrace more polarizing approaches. I see these ideas as powerful; as pieces of an advanced strategy for defeating one’s opponents (which also happen to coincide with reducing toxic polarization: an indirect way to defeat extremism in general). Often, game theory optimal approaches are counterintuitive. To me, these high-aggression approaches are similar to intuitive but faulty beginner-level poker player instincts on how to play (for example, a thought process like, “I’ve got a very strong hand so I’ll bet big” in spots when they’re probably only going to be called by stronger hands).

Here’s a link to that op-ed again.