SBSQ #20: The game theory of Trump vs. SCOTUS
Plus: Trump Derangement Syndrome, the value of political protests, and how much should you cater to the party base?
A quick housekeeping note: April was a very busy month, and I’m still evaluating applications for the Assistant Sports Analyst position. No candidates have been contacted yet, and I greatly appreciate your patience. My goal is to block out time this weekend and contact all candidates by early next week.
Welcome to edition #20 of Silver Bulletin Subscriber Questions (SBSQ). This month’s version was originally going to be headlined “SBSQ #20: 5 strategy questions, 100 days in”. But that’s a lot of numbers, plus we’re now 102 days into Trump’s second term. I do think this is a particularly meaty batch of questions, though, that dovetail well off of one another:
What are the costs of ignoring your party base?
Should you attack your opponent's political strengths instead of their weaknesses?
What does game theory say about Trump vs. the Supreme Court?
Do political protests really make a difference?
Is there any plausible method to Trump’s madness on tariffs?
As always, you can leave questions for the next edition of SBSQ — due late May/early June — in the comments below.
What are the costs of ignoring your party base?
David McCarthy asks:
Question for SBSQ #20: You recently argued that Democrats shouldn't pick the Albrego [sic] Garcia fight because immigration isn't a winning issue for them. However, what about the risk the Democrats take of losing their core supporters by not engaging in the Albrego Garcia fight? It seems like that would be very damaging to them too.
The first three questions were all inspired by my long newsletter last week on the politics surrounding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Just for context, there have been a couple of big developments in that case since that newsletter came out:
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the White House had made overtures to Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele about returning Abrego Garcia, in contradiction to its otherwise defiant tone. I think one ought to be quite skeptical about just how sincere these overtures were. But even if you regard this as ass-covering, it does suggest that the White House is at least somewhat concerned about the perception of defying the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, there’s been a lot of polling out, mostly to coincide with Trump’s 100th day in office. Trump’s approval ratings have resumed a rather sharp decline after a plateau period.
It’s important to change our minds here at Silver Bulletin as the evidence changes. As I’ll get to at the end of this item, the timing of this polling is somewhat ambiguous. But it’s enough to push me from thinking Democrats’ strategy to intensively focus on Abrego Garcia’s case was a mistake but “within the margin of error” to frankly being less certain about any of this.
Let me directly address David’s question about core supporters first, however.
I wouldn’t quite call myself a “popularist”, just because I often think it’s quite difficult to tease out what the public really wants and what will really be popular in the long run (the Abrego Garcia case being a good example). Still, I share the view that elections have massive consequences, and that there had better be a pretty big reward when you’re taking a knowingly unpopular action. There are a core few reasons why squishy, election-focused types like me endorse this idea: