Tit for Tat
Is there anything more depressing than yet another episode demonstrating the childish behaviour of Donald Trump? Recently the thin-skinned President responded to Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to defer the State of the Union address by cancelling her long-planned trip overseas. They were off, with Mr. Must-win-whatever-the-cost playing ‘tit for tat’, trading blow for blow.
As soon as the Democrats won control of the House, conflict was inevitable, and the newly elected Democrat Speaker was ready. The US was thrown into a partial shutdown, precipitated by Trump demanding $5.7bn for his ‘Wall’ (to complete more of the partial wall already built between the USA and Mexico): to date, neither side has conceded since key activities of the US government were ‘unfunded’ on December 22. Democrats are refusing to vote the money for the wall, but are offering to end the shutdown without Wall funding while agreeing to continue negotiations over border security once the government is back in business. A stalemate?
Building the wall is one of the three signature themes in Trump’s electioneering promises: build the wall, scrap ‘Obamacare’ and reduce taxes. All these proposals were part of Making America Great Again. There were many other elements to the platform (including that ongoing threat to “lock her up” aimed at Hillary Clinton), but these three are central to Trump’s measure of success, and his ability to present a strong case for re-election in 2020. Tax reform has been accomplished, albeit mainly for the benefit of the rich (he might have forgotten to go into the finer details with his loyal ‘white working class’ supporters); the Affordable Health Care Act remains, though damaged by various executive orders; and the wall is still not being built, except for a short section agreed some time ago. Not even 50% success at best.
That’s the background. However, in January things got exciting when Speaker Pelosi wrote to the President suggesting a delay to the State of the Union address, the speech that the American presidents gives every year to both houses of Congress. Nancy Pelosi blamed security concerns amid the government shutdown and said that if Mr. Trump did not wish to delay the speech, he could present it to Congress in writing.[i] Calculated to infuriate, it succeeded.
Is there a legal basis for her making this suggestion? The Constitution says the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union.” But what is now a speech was just a written statement back in the distant past. Today, the House Speaker typically arranges the address by invitation, although the precise date is the subject of mutual agreement with the White House. To be clear, the President turns up by invitation, and no-one is quite sure what would happen if the invitation wasn’t forthcoming. Perhaps, like the UK Queen speaking at Christmas, it would have to be a televised event.
Back to an infuriated Donald Trump. Unusually, he didn’t respond to the proposal by an immediate tweet or return post! Instead, a day later, he cancelled a secret trip that Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats were about to take to Brussels, Egypt and Kabul, even as the bus was beginning the journey to a waiting military aircraft. More than just petty, showing the usual airy disregard for safety, protocol and good behaviour, he revealed highly confidential information about this visit. “We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” he wrote. He went on to suggest that if she wanted to proceed, she could fly using commercial aircraft! [ii]
It was a stunning insult to the politician who stands third in line in the American power structure, behind the president and vice president, with the added twist that Melania Trump took a military aircraft flight down to Florida later that day. As the Speaker’s chief of staff, Drew Hammill, made clear, rather than being a junket, the stop in Brussels was designed so that Ms. Pelosi and Democratic colleagues “could meet with NATO commanders, US military officials and others to “reaffirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance” — of which Mr. Trump has repeatedly been disdainful.” [iii] They then planned to meet with the US military in Kabul.
Is all this just another exchange in the ongoing political game? Keep batting the ball back over the net, trying to raise the stakes each time, provoking to the point where one or the other has to cave in? That’s more than tit for tat: sounds like ‘anything you can do, I can do better’? Trump is hoping the Democrats will fold (“I win”), and the Democrats keep pushing for dialogue and compromise (“We can all win”). As I write, it seems that Trump was the one who backed down!
While I was following along, I was reminded of an incident I saw many years ago, in the dying years of Australian Prime Minister Malcom Fraser’s administration. I was working for an Australian government statutory authority, and a friend in Canberra urged me to come up for a visit. We had some business, but, he implied, there might be something more. So it was that late in the day, I was sitting in parliament (that beautiful old Parliament House close to Lake Burley Griffin), listening to the second reading of a bill on resource management. It didn’t sound exciting, but my colleague was insistent. The minister at the time was Senator Carrick, and since he was in the Australian upper house, the bill had to be read by someone in the House of Representatives. I forget his name; anyway, a dull yet dutiful reading was accomplished.
The opposition, Labor, now had the opportunity to respond, and up stood a young man I didn’t know. His name was Paul Keating, and he gave, apparently without notes, a very funny yet devastating reply. His theme was simple. He took every previous statement the Fraser government had made about the resources industry and its oversight, and showed how each one contradicted, usually in fairly important ways, the one before. By the time he finished, he had everyone laughing, including the government members. He knew it wouldn’t stop the bill being passed, but everyone would remember how foolish the government had appeared.
My friend took me down to the Members’ Bar afterwards. There was Paul Keating, talking to Senator Carrick. They were laughing, slapping each other on the back, as one (Carrick I think) bought drinks for the other. It’s probably my imagination now, but I thought I heard Carrick say, “That was fun!”. Australian Parliament can be a rough place, and Paul Keating was to become renowned for his often vicious and vituperative attacks. That day I saw Paul Keating, it was still during the time when the old traditions stood up well, and attacks in the House were set aside once people met outside. I’m not certain that is still the case. Keating helped end it.
What is very clear is that, however behaviour was in Congress before he arrived, Donald Trump has created a violent and vilifying atmosphere today. Civility has been cast aside as the nastiness and angry immediacy of self-centred Trump’s responses bounce around the twitterverse.
Talking about bouncing around and batting the ball over the net allows me to segue to Serena Williams. Ms. Williams is a powerful, aggressive and dominating tennis player, without doubt one of the all-time greats. She is merciless on court, as she showed recently at the Australian Open when she demolished world number 59, Dayana Yastremska, 6-2, 6-1. As the Australian Broadcasting report observed: As Williams approached the net following her comfortable 6-2, 6-1 win over Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska on Rod Laver Arena, she found her 18-year-old opponent in tears. Williams had dominated Yastremska, breaking the world number 59’s serve on five occasions. But with the match over, the 23-time major singles winner consoled Yastremska at the net, offering some words of encouragement”:
“You did amazing. You did so well. You did amazing,” she told a visibly distressed Yastremska, who grew up idolising Williams. “Don’t cry, you did really well.” Not everyone believes Williams has been as sporting during her career, but her gesture to Yastremska deserved the applause she received. Williams later revealed how touched she was by the emotions Yastremska was going through. “As she was walking towards the net, I could tell she was quite upset,” she said. “I kind of liked that. It shows she wasn’t just there to play a good match, she was there to win. She wanted to win. “That really broke my heart. I think she’s a good talent. It’s good to see that attitude.” [iv]
It appears there are two versions of ‘Tit for Tat’. One is where you respond to a blow with a blow back, and then move on. Game over, you might even speak privately to the person on the other side, to reaffirm this is not personal, but all part of the game. Critical to this is that every return has to follow the rules of the game.
Or you respond to win by escalating the battle, with each response designed be bigger and better than the one before, whatever the cost. This is the world of power-brokers fearing loss of control, willing to destroy to keep asserting their dominance and importance. Push things to the limit, creep over the edge of the rules: self-centred behaviour, ‘real men’ at play. In this version of tit for tat, you do what you need to do, and the rules are there to be ignored when it suits you.
That kind of escalating behaviour brings to mind the Potlatch, the gift giving feasts that were common among the indigenous groups in the North West of the US and Canada. At first glance, these were bizarre activities. A chief or some other important man in the community would collect a large amount of property, and then give a great potlatch, a celebratory feast in which all this property and food was distributed among his friends, and, if possible, among the neighboring tribes, too. In some cases, part of the event would also see the destruction of some of the goods on display. These feasts were often connected with births, marriages and other significant events. If a chief invited another to attend, then it was expected that the invitee would hold a potlatch himself at a later date, even more expensive that the one he had attended. If this sounds like showing off, a way of boasting, you’re correct. Demonstrating wealth was important.
However, closer analysis has shown there is more to this than prestige and one-upmanship. Dorothy Johansen, a historian of the Pacific Northwest, described the dynamic in this way:
“In the potlatch, the host in effect challenged a guest chieftain to exceed him in his ‘power’ to give away or to destroy goods. If the guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his ‘power’ was diminished. Hierarchical relations within and between clans, villages, and nations, were observed and reinforced through the distribution or sometimes destruction of wealth, dance performances, and other ceremonies. The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources. The hosts demonstrate their wealth and prominence through giving away goods. “ [v]
Johansen wasn’t an anthropologist, and most accounts today emphasise the economic system that underlay this ostentatious behaviour. Her description makes it clear each successive potlatch between chiefs always had an element of accumulating interest, more added each time. This was a system for economic growth. Eventually, one chief would be unable to continue, lose prestige, and even become subservient to the other. When that happened, the remaining chief would find another, perhaps an upstart trying to build prestige, and the cycle would begin again. A system of mini-economic cycles, with chiefs, like companies, growing and then failing.
Not the same as tit for tat where you respond with a similar if stronger return back to the other person. Trading blow for blow is the characteristic of most sports. Hit the ball over the net, the other player tries to hit it back, preferably so that another return is impossible. Bowl the ball at the batsman, the batter tries to hit it away for runs. Success will mean the bowler will try another approach. But when the game is over, all the aggressive play is set aside, and normal behaviour returns. In cricket, it is time for tea!
Well, that’s the way it used to, but now some sports players carry on attacking after the game. What might have been teasing a couple of decades ago has turned into verbal and even physical abuse off the pitch. Winning becomes everything; cricket’s ‘just not cricket’ anymore.
Is that what we are seeing in the US government right now? A world where Republicans and Democrats might have reached across the floor to craft a new measure to improve services, defend the country, or build the economy, now has become the arena for ‘must win’ situations. Negotiating, making a deal where everyone gets something has been cast aside for a ‘I win, you lose’ scenario. In that environment, in the same way that the potlatch operated up among the tribes of the Northwest, you either succumb or keep fighting. The rules of the game are pushed to the extreme in the face of the determination to be the winner.
This certainly seems to be the case in America’s fractured democracy. As the Republicans and Democrats move further and further apart, there is almost no common ground between the members of Congress. The Economist put it this way: things are ‘coming apart’. [vi]
Marcel Mauss described these situations well: “Just as the Trobriand kula is an extreme case of gift exchange, so the potlatch in North-West America is the monster child of the gift system”. [vii] To which we might add that just as parliaments offer an obvious case of tit for tat behaviour, so the current US Presidency is the monster child of political trading. Monster child? All too apt.
[i] https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/16/full-text-pelosi-letter-1104906
[ii] http://fortune.com/2019/01/18/trump-cancels-pelosi-trip-melania-shutdown/
[iii] https://nypost.com/2019/01/17/pelosi-staffer-explains-top-secret-trip-after-trump-postpones-it/
[iv] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-19/serena-williams-elina-svitolina-show-outstanding-sportsmanship/10729238?section=sport
[v] Dorothy O. Johansen, Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest, 2nd ed., (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 7–8.
[vi] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/01/10/before-1980-the-federal-government-did-not-shut-down
[vii] Marcel Mauss, The Gift, Cohen and West: 1954, page 41
