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A new challenge for Trump and Biden: cooperation

Henning Stein, PhD, GCB.D

Results-Oriented Investment Solutions Executive | Certified Board Member | Asset & Wealth Management Change Agent | International Presenter & Author

发布日期: 2020年9月30日

Conflict as a norm

It is four years since humanity bore witness to a gruesome clash between two fierce enemies, each seemingly bent on the other’s total destruction. Appalled commentators later wrote of “battleships... shooting their missiles at one another” amid “bellicose” and even “apocalyptic” scenes.

One side had earlier ramped up the enmity by describing its foe’s followers as “a basket of deplorables”. The other vowed that its rival – branded “the devil” – would be imprisoned if defeated. Analysts noted that the protagonists had come “armed with nukes” and were “prepared to use them”; it was, one lamented, a “grotesque” spectacle.

Yet this was not some sickening, blood-soaked confrontation between warring nations. This was a spoken exchange between two individuals intent on claiming a mantle once customarily known as “leader of the free world”. This was, of course, the 2016 US presidential debates.

As the 2020 version begins, there will very likely be more of the same. For these skirmishes have in many ways come to encapsulate the political status quo not just in America but in various countries supposedly committed to democracy. This is the stuff of a profoundly biased, unapologetically partisan system that is all but devoid of the dispassionate, rational thinking necessary for genuine progress.

I have written previously about epistocracy – in effect, rule by knowledge. Ideally, this concept would result in those most qualified to vote electing those most qualified to hold high office. I remarked that such an idea, while itself dauntingly radical, should at least prompt us to contemplate viable alternatives to what prevails at present: a political arena that too often encourages ignorance, ideology and deeply ingrained tribal leanings at the expense of a meaningful grasp of the issues at hand.

It now occurs to me, as Donald Trump and Joe Biden plunge into another whirlwind of ad hominem attacks, that the presidential debates could serve as a perfect means of turning the tide. Having become a microcosm of what politics should not be, maybe they could become a microcosm of what politics should be. And the key, I believe, lies in demanding collaboration instead of conflict.

Beyond bifurcation

Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematics professor whose parallel career as a singer-songwriter placed him among the US’s countercultural movement, proclaimed political satire dead after Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. He reiterated this conviction seven years later, complaining that reality had outstripped comedy’s capacity to mock it, and underlined the sentiment in 2002, declaring: “Things I once thought were funny are scary now.”

One reason why the political landscape in the US is so “scary” today is that the chances of agreement – and, by extension, the scope for headway being made – are almost invariably remote. Recent presidencies have increasingly been defined by institutional gridlock, with the precious few reforms that are somehow passed either the products of near-crippling compromise or the future victims of inexorable repeal.

Even Barack Obama, who entered the White House after insisting that there had “never been anything false about hope”, appeared to accept the futility of the impasse. His second inauguration speech contained not one occurrence of his first-term mantra – “Yes, we can” – but featured four instances of “We cannot”. He spoke of bringing red and blue together, but instead they drifted farther apart.

Needless to say, this bifurcation has since only intensified. Dismay among sections of the media, business, academia and, most importantly, the public has failed to halt the divergence. If anything, political discourse is now widely expected to amount to little more than personal insults and petty point-scoring.

The “town hall” format, as regularly employed by CNN, attempts to rise above the dispiriting norm by allowing voters to shape the discussion. It certainly represents a welcome improvement. Yet even this approach seldom calms the inherently belligerent, unyielding mood.

In 2016, for example, Trump and Hilary Clinton were asked: “Regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?” Trump acknowledged that Clinton was not a quitter; Clinton praised Trump’s children; and that was as good as it got.

The Collaboration Lab

Senseless bickering may be a source of perverse amusement for some viewers, but in the final reckoning – once all the internecine tub-thumping has at last subsided – there is nothing funny about ruinous disunion. So what about a structure that literally forces the candidates to cooperate?

Instead of providing a ready-made forum for mutual loathing and knee-jerk gainsaying, might it be possible – not to mention beneficial – to create conditions for finding common ground? Imagine, for instance, a debate requiring Trump and Biden to adhere to the following rules:

1. Tackle a pressing challenge together

The candidates are presented with a major issue – say, how to deliver better healthcare for Americans. Together, they must first analyse the salient facts – as outlined by impartial experts, not their own parties – and then produce a joint statement that summarises the problem.

2. Explore potential solutions with each other

The candidates must next engage in practical dialogue, taking turns to propose responses to the challenge. This should not be a matter of each automatically deriding anything that the other says. They should seek to identify the pros and cons of every suggestion.

3. Agree a bipartisan solution

The candidates must arrive at a joint statement that crystallises whatever shared position they have been able to reach. Remaining points of dispute – of which there will inevitably be several – should be highlighted in a factual way, avoiding “blame game” reproaches.

We might call such an encounter The Collaboration Lab. It may sound so fanciful as to be worthy of the Game Show Network – Trump and Biden, Republican and Democrat, actually deigning to work with each other – but if the prospect is truly unconscionable then it is the unwilling participants, not the notion itself, that should attract ridicule.

In search of open-mindedness

Last year, in making the case for epistocracy, I drew attention to politics’ strange and enduring immunity to the dynamics that consistently remould other walks of life. In particular, I pointed out that in the corporate sphere we never say to ourselves: “It has always been like this. Leave it is as it is.”

For some decades now the most innovative, farsighted businesses have pursued policies that support diversity of thought. This philosophy is best captured in the words of Linus Pauling, twice a Nobel laureate, who famously said: “If you want to have good ideas then you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.”

As explained in an Invesco white paper, the same ethos can be found in theoretical physicist Richard Feynman’s visualisation of scientific progress as a cascade of sieves with ever-smaller holes. A theory might pass through numerous tiers before eventually getting stuck, at which juncture it should be rejected.

This is how we endeavour to ensure that only the best ideas and the most watertight theories survive. It is a matter of critical scrutiny and open-mindedness. A process of near-mechanical contradiction, which is now dangerously close to de rigueur in many political circles, is unlikely to deliver similarly desirable outcomes.

“One of the painful things about our time,” Bertrand Russell once said, “is that those who feel certainty are stupid.” In other words, the people who relentlessly cling to their own arguments are foolish; by contrast, the people who are ready to listen and learn are to be admired.

Would we think better of our politicians if for once – just once – they could show themselves capable of constructive conciliation? And what might the broader impact be if they could demonstrate such a capacity before a global audience? The novelty value alone would make the exercise worthwhile; setting the tone for a new and more optimistic way of doing things would be a significant bonus.

Disclaimer: I work at Invesco. All views and recommendations in this article are solely my personal opinion. They may or may not coincide with company opinion but should never be interpreted as Invesco company statements.

Links

Politico: “Lester Holt stays out of the way”, 27 September 2016

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/lester-holt-debate-clinton-trump-228751

Entertainment: “Trump v Clinton: the first presidential debate reviewed”, 27 September 2016

https://ew.com/article/2016/09/27/first-presidential-debate-review/

NBC: “2016 presidential debate analysis: Trump rallies faithful in 2nd showdown”, 9 October 2016

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-presidential-debates/presidential-debate-analysis-donald-trump-rallies-faithful-2nd-showdown-n663441

Politico: “The 7 nastiest insults of the debate”, October 9 2016

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/2016-presidential-debates-insults-229488

Guardian: “‘I’m a gentleman’: Trump menaces Clinton with imposing presence and brash insults”, 10 October 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/10/presidential-debate-trump-bully-clinton

LinkedIn: “Is it time to disrupt democracy?”, 19 September 2019