I am not an alarmist, nor would I be considered a chicken little. In fact, I tend to think systems self-regulate and maintain an equilibrium.
However, for the first time, I am starting to ponder is America’s current two party system heading towards collapse?
Complexity
Over the weekend, I made the mistake of peering down the rabbit hole of the study of complexity and complex systems.
My over-simplified definition of a complex system? A complex systems is comprised of many, diverse actors who have interdependent relationships providing feedback that operate in an adapting, ever changing landscape.
This field is study’s grandfather could be considered Thomas Schelling. His nobel prize winning economic work is summarized in Micromotives and Macrobehavior. You are familiar with his work if you have read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point.
A basic point is micro level behavior and preferences can and often will differ from macro level results. These macro level results “emerge” from the microlevel actors, meaning no central actor is conducting.
I think we all can agree, the american political system could be described as a complex system.
The Collapse of Complex Systems
When we look at complex systems, they are remarkably tolerant systems, because as we defined them, they adapt….to a point.
However, our current political system is suffering fundamentally in two requirements for a healthy complex system:
Diversity
Feedback
Diversity in a Complex System
One of the requirements of a complex system is diversity. Not diversity of just the commonly discussed race and gender, but diversity of thought.
Diversity is a sign of the robustness of a system and its ability to adapt.
Making the concept simple: the more robust (diverse) a system, the more likely of optimizing a outcome.
When a system is reduced to homogeneous actors, the system loses robustness and heads towards catastrophic failure.
An example is a lake.
A lake is a large, complex, diverse and robust system. You put nitrogen run-off into a lake, a lake can adjust and adapt. No big deal.
You continue to add more nitrogen, a lake will continue to adjust, but its diversity is being reduced. It is still a healthy lake, but the complex system is undergoing stress.
You continue to add nitrogen to a lake, and at some critical point there is little to no diversity and BAM! you hit a tipping point and we are left with a slimy mess, a eutrophic lake.
Feedback in Complex Systems
Complex systems have cascading effects leading to tipping points. One of those cascading causing effects is when feedback loops tip too far to positive only or negative only.
With the lack of diversity in both parties and the curating of news, we observe epistemic closure skyrocketing in our political system.
Epistemic closure is not new, it was first talked about in the 1960s. More recently David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, was warning us about closed feedback loops in 2010 in his NYT piece, Post-Tea-Party Nation.
We observe feedback loops becoming less diverse, reinforced with epistemic closure, further affecting the feedback loop. It is a death spiral.
Observation of Current System
We would be hard-pressed to find a single thinking American that is satisfied with the current state of America’s political system.
The political system is less diverse thanks to gerrymandered districts and ideological purges. The feedback loops are closing (if not closed for some) thanks to epistemic closure.
Both factors are accelerating to magnitudes we have not observed due to catalysts such as technology (Internet) and money (super PACS).
Another observation of change in complex systems and its modeling is the speed at which massive change happens.
Let’s return to the lake example. A little disfunction is tolerated, but once cascades happen the change is inexorable, and change happens with a violent suddenness. Recent examples? the fall of the USSR and the US financial meltdown.
The USSR and the world financial markets were both systems similar to the lake. You could observe the signs of stress, but no one predicted the rate or size of change.
The current system of 2 party dominance is under tremendous stress.
Congress’ approval rating is near an all-time low of 15%.
BOTH parties favorabilities are at historic lows.
Citizens have lost faith in government’s ability to do its basic job.
When I look at our country’s current two party system, I see signs of collapse and cascades.
There are questions remaining:
Can we interject enough diversity back into the complex system to increase the likelihood of the system adapting? I see little to no evidence of that.
Have we already passed the tipping point towards collapse?
If we have not reached a tipping point towards collapse, will the system adapt and experience a realignment like we have seen in the past? V. O. Key, Jr. wrote about such realignments – Whigs, FDR, Nixon, Reagan, etc.
If we have reached a tipping point, what would a collapse of the current political system look like? A third party and the death of one or both of the established parties? A radical redesign of the governmental system towards a multi-party governance?
I have always tended to believe that our 200 year old system of government is extremely robust and will adapt. I have previously thought we could and should expect a realignment.
However, with the acceleration of purges and closed feedback loops, I fear the system is now barreling towards collapse.
What I am becoming is more convinced daily that our complex system of governance will undergo a massive change in a relatively short period of time.
This massive change will take the form of a major realignment of the two major political parties or a collapse of our governing system. I hope it is the first.
As with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Duke leading up to World War 1, in complex systems, a small spark can cause a massive, cascading change.
There is a difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. There is also a difference between the following two questions:
What are my chances of challenging an incumbent? and
If I decide to challenge an incumbent, what do I need to do to be successful?
Today, we explore second question.
If I decide to challenge an incumbent, what do I need to do to be successful?
People are upset and anxious and with these feelings comes the desire to throw out every incumbent, but that seldom happens. Why?
We are not going to explore the substantial advantages incumbents enjoy. We are going to set them aside and attempt to answer the question, “what does a challenger need to do to be successful?”
Often in politics, we borrow from other disciplines and blend them together. In attempting to answer this question, I am going to borrow heavily from business to build out a new theory on challenging an incumbent.
The specific theory I am going to use is the New Lanchester Strategy. The strategy has its roots in Britain and then used by Japan business as a closely guarded trade secret. The New Lanchester Strategy is considered one of the best tools available for determining market type choices for both start-ups and existing businesses and is used to formulate marketing plans with strategies to attack market share.
The theory has military, business and political implications.
The New Lanchester Strategy asks “How do you win customers for a new, improved offer? You must understand how customers decide, and you must target at their decision process. It means that the offered products or services must become irresistible for the target market.”
I came across the New Lanchester Strategy when reading The Four Steps to the Epiphany, by Steven Gary Blank. Mr. Blank is a founder of the lean start-up movement and the book is considered a classic book in the start-up world.
Mr. Blank removes the math and states:
If a single company has 74% of the market, the market has become an effective monopoly. For a startup, that’s an unassailable position for a head-on assault
If the combined market share for the market leader and second-ranking company is greater than 74% and the first company is within 1.7 times the share of the second, it means the market is held by a duopoly. This is also an unassailable position for a startup to attack.
If a company has 41% market share and at least 1.7 times the market share of the next largest company, it is considered the market leader. For a startup, this too is a very difficult market to enter. Markets with a clear market leader are, for a startup an opportunity for re-segmentation.
If the biggest player in a market has at least a 26% market share, the market is unstable, with a strong possibility of abrupt shifts in the company rankings. Here there may be some entry opportunities for startups or new products from existing players.
If the biggest player has less than 26% market share, it has no real impact in influencing the market. Startups who want to enter an existing market find these the easiest to penetrate.
Blank adds two more important rules in the strategy that are particularly relevant:
If you decide to attack a market that has just one dominant player, you need to be prepared to spend three times (3x) the combined sales and marketing budget of that dominant player.
In a market that has multiple participants, the cost of entry is lower, but you still need to spend 1.7 times (1.7x) the combined sales and marketing budget of the company you plan to attack.
Political Implications of the New Lanchester Strategy
If we consider an incumbent politician as having established market-share, and if we switch market-share for favorability polling numbers or even elections results, we can start to apply the New Lanchester Strategy to politics and develop a substitute hypothesis.
I think the best substitute is favorability ratings because it should be more current than past election results.
I am going to over-simplify for a starting point.
If an incumbent has a favorability rating over over 74%, it is an unassailable position for a head on-assault; possible with a strategy of re-segmentation.
If an incumbent has favorability ratings between 41%-74%, it is still an unassailable position for a for a head on assault; possible with a strategy of re-segmentation.
It is not until the favorability rating is less than 41%, do we observe an easier path to entry.
Blanks’s stunning finding using the New Lanchester Strategy: regardless of the specific market-share or favorability ratings, if you are going to challenge an incumbent, you need to spend 1.7 x – 3 x the communication budget of the incumbent to take market-share.
Conclusion
As a company that has run many challenges to incumbents, some successful, most not; it is difficult to explain to excited candidates the difficulties facing challengers – not even specific to your candidacy – but rather any challenger.
When challenging an incumbent, almost every card in the deck is stacked against the challenger.
Now, consider a political neophyte with no market-share.
Candidates often cite such events like Rep David Blat’s defeat of an Eric Cantor as proof of concept, but interestingly they never consider the true Black Swan nature of such a defeat.
Combine that fallacy with prospective incumbent challengers basing their campaign budgets on what either the incumbent or a previous unsuccessful challenger spent, and we have a recipe for defeat.
We are now going to take this new theory and back test it against races to where incumbents or politicians with high market-share (in open races) were defeated by successful challengers. Any bets whether this new theory holds true?
During each odd number year, I set a goal to get better at my political science craft. Part of that goal is reading. Odd number year = take advantage of some down time = goal of 50 books related to political consulting. In 2013, I exceeded the goal by 5. #humblebrag
I believe the job of a political consultant is to study how people make decisions and then figure out how to affect the decision making process. This means our area for study is wide and vast.
In attempting to categorize the areas of concentration of my reading, I’ve come up with Behavior Decision Making, Cognitive Brain, Game Theory, Political Psychology, Advertising, Neuromarketing, Branding, Argumentation, and Philosophy.
I would say that this year’s main focus was on attempting to read more about how the brain works, makes decisions, and ways to potentially influence voters.
When people find out about my reading goal, I am often asked for recommendations.
Here you go:
Alex’s Fancy 2013 Top 10 12 Reading List for Political Consultants
(Note: The links provided are NOT affiliate links. They exist only for your convenience.)
Regardless of what the title says, this is not an introduction. There is math, lots of math, lots of advanced math. It is not for the faint of heart, and approximately 57% of the math went over my head. The part I did retain was fantastic.
A great anthology on political behavior, group relations, theoretical approaches, and change politics. I admit, I only skimmed the International Relations section.
I loved, loved, loved this book. In fact, I wrote an entire blog piece about it. Essentially this book tells us that in agreement with cognitive studies that issues mean little in the voters decision making process. Again, a novel methodology to studying the issue.
An absolute must read. This book takes a deep dive in Romney / Obama, separating the “political science truth” from the talk show pundits’ “truths”. If you are interested in the science of politics and what really happened in 2012, you should read this book.
If there was ever a book I read this year that made me read every single footnote, it was this one. This is fascinating stuff, but it also carries over into your clients’ request for “big data.”
While this book contains practical methods to critical thinking, the major revelation in this book is that our minds are liars. This book started my year long journey into biases, cognitive research and humility. If you consider yourself a true political analyst, you must do some meta-thinking about your biases and adopt some methodologies to counter them. If the smartest analysts in the world implement methodologies to attempt to minimize bias, political consultants should also.
While this book is additional reading into the two major systems of the brain and how our brains fool us, the book’s other key insight is the importance of metaphors. It uses the perfect metaphor for the two system brain: the rider and the elephant. This one metaphor wrapped up all the research and reading of cognitive biases into one simple to understand package; thus stressing the need for metaphors. Eureka moment! It has the added bonus of adding to our understanding of human nature and the concept of happiness.
This was the one book that allowed me to pull together “Alex Patton’s grand unified theory of political communication.” I had just completed reading the book and was ruminating on it while doing a 50 mile bike ride. Then came the Eureka moment, the proverbial lightning strike. I had to stop my bike and find my phone voice recorder as soon as possible. Yes, it was that dramatic. The book is dry and academic, but for me it was the most important book I read this year.
This book significantly changed the way I think about and make sense of the world. It is a discussion of how highly improbable events have massive influence on our lives. Once you read this, you can no longer give ‘guarantees’ and you become aware of the fact that “you don’t know what you don’t know.”
What does screenwriting have to do with politics? EVERYTHING. Political Consultants are story tellers, and there is no better book on the structure of stories and how to tell better ones. Looking how to construct a hero narrative? Look no further, read this.
Read this in college, and Zaller’s four axioms have stayed with me ever since. I normally re-read this every other off year for a refresher.
Final Words
Noting that political consulting has few professional credentials other than reputation, it is imperative that we take ownership of improving our craft. If you are still relying on decades of accumulated rules of thumb, I think you should make a change in your behavior.
Our minds are tricky little devils, and we owe it to our clients to get better.
Happy New year, and I hope the cycle is prosperous for you and your family.
The handbook was originally published in 2000, and I was enthralled with the document. After all, in a sense, political consultants are producers of Intelligence. It just happens to be political consultants trade in mostly open-source intelligence.
At first, I felt I was being respectfully subservient. I was going to go behind the door and learn the secrets to being a great CIA analyst.
However, as I read the document, it became apparent that what I had stumbled upon was the government’s version of Strunk & White.
It is a good read, but you will learn no secrets, only helpful hints such as:
The importance of a title
How to gist your reading (actually a very helpful section)
The need for focus and clarity
“If you can’t summarize your bottom line in one sentence, you haven’t done your analysis.”
One idea – One Paragraph
The inverted Pyramid writing style, i.e. begin with the core assumption.
The importance of precise language (no jargon, no abbreviations, allow no possible misunderstandings)
Again, there is nothing earth shattering, but it is an interesting read.
Developing Analytical Objectivity
The part that I found most interesting is the section entitled “Developing Analytical Objectivity.”
In a world filled with talk radio and infotainment, it is an important point to raise awareness about.
We have talked extensively about the cognitive nature of our brains and some of the fallacies and tricks our brains play on us – especially in the political arena.
This warning given to some of our country’s brightest thinkers acts as a reminder that if the smartest person in the room must protect against biases, so must we.
While there are no state secrets in the document, we all can use a refresher on how to write and think more clearly. I strongly urge you take a quick read.
I have become that guy. You know THAT guy that likes to discuss politics on Facebook. I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself. I’m curious and I want to try and figure put how people think.
What I am finding is that people are fighting and not arguing, in the classical definition of the word, which is to seek understanding.
As a political professional, I think our primary mission is to discover HOW people make a decision – particularly political decisions – so that we may figure out HOW to effect these decisions.
I got myself into a heated discussion because I questioned a fellow conservative on their black/white thinking. I am constantly aware of people expressing an opinion as 100% true with no room for discussion.
This was my final comment that I placed on Facebook when trying to exit the conversation:
Here is all that I really know and it is something that will put me at odds with a lot of people : I reject absolutism. I am almost envious of those who know an answer to any question with 100% certainty. I think the world is easier for them. Unfortunately, my brain does not work that way. Maybe it is the political scientist in me that sees all “facts” “laws” etc must be submitted for testing and attempted to be disproved. I can’t out of hand reject anyone’s thoughts as non-virtuous. I also feel that a lot of people are not arguing to understand, but rather are just fighting. Just because I question something does not make me a traitor, a RINO, a liberal, a moderate or any other label you may wish to place on me. What I am is curious, a sinner, and as I age more willing to question my own brain and thoughts. Again, my brain is messy, Im trying to find my own way, and I envy those who are 100% certain in their views. PS You must have missed my comment on Grayson being no better than those he disparages.
Political professionals MUST raise their eyes from the horizon and cross-study psychology, economics, decision making theory, neuroscience, statistics, and really anything that may give us an edge.
In my years of attempting to get better, I have come to strongly believe in two things:
A lot of rules of thumb and/or conventional wisdom are often proven to be wrong or counter-intuitive.
In fact if you do much reading at all into predictions you find people are just plain awful at them – and experts are the worse.
Early in my career, I found myself making such nonsense statements as:
“That person doesn’t stand a chance of winning!”
“She is going to lose!”
“If that person runs, they will KILL the field!”
Great for talk radio and when talking to a homogeneous group! However, I dare you track such statements and measure the accuracy of them.
The wisdom of predictions
Experience and wisdom has taught me a valuable lesson – often by beating me over the head – but the lesson is this:
I no longer make binary predictions. They are for fools. I now watch my language very closely so that I make more accurate statements.
“That person has a very low chance of winning!”
“She has an extremely high chance of losing the election!”
“If that person runs, in my opinion, they have an extremely high probability of victory!”
This is more than just a re-framing statement. It actually leads to a much better discussion and ultimately a much better understanding.
When I say “I think they have a low probability of winning”, we move the discussion from agreement or disagreement with me to a discussion of my assumptions and basis for my conclusion.
The other thing that happens is we leave open the ability to revise the prediction – when and if the underlying assumptions change.
Overall, we now have a much deeper understanding of the situation.
“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”
Some of you may recognize it as Bayes statistics, and it is exactly.
Conclusion
Discovering and studying this way of thinking about problems had has an impactful influence in many areas of my life.
When you start to think in probabilities based upon assumptions that may change over time, you become keenly aware of your mental limitations.
You also become astutely aware there are very few predictions that you can make with a 100% probability. You simply must allow for a probability of a Black Swan – no matter how small.
Next time someone boldly states a claim that “X is true”, ask them how certain they are of “X claim.” The discussion will change.
When you start adjusting your thinking to a Bayes’ model, you immediately become a little more humble and in the end more accurate.
And there is a 100% chance that I am 100% correct about this.
Hierarchical Bayes models free researchers from computational constraints and allow researchers and practitioners to develop more realistic models of buyer behavior and decision making.
(Yes, it is dense with math, but it is an interesting look at how this applies in Marketing.)
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