America: The Zero-Sum Game

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punditman says…

One of the greatest hockey games of all time was played on New Year's Eve, 1975, between the Montreal Canadiens and the Soviet Red Army. It ended in a 3-3 tie. More on that later.

A tie represents a balanced outcome—the opposite of a zero-sum game, where any advantage gained by one side comes at an equal loss to the other.

I may ruffle a few Bald Eagle feathers here, but I’m Canadian, so I’ll apologize ahead of time to my American readers and friends for any broad generalizations.

So here goes: America has become a zero-sum game.

Donald Trump is the ultimate expression of this mindset—a man for whom politics is not about governance but domination. Every interaction is a contest, every compromise a defeat, and every opponent must be crushed. His political brand is built on the idea that for America to win, someone else must lose—immigrants, political rivals, fellow citizens, even neighbours and friends.

This zero-sum thinking has long been embedded in American society, fuelling divisions: Slave states vs. Free states, Union vs. Confederacy, Free World vs. Communist Bloc, Counterculture vs. Establishment, Black vs. White, Red vs. Blue, Millennial vs. Boomer, Urban vs. Rural, Coastal elite vs. “real” American.

Locked in cycles of opposition, generation after generation, the Excited States of America has long struggled to escape from the limiting idea that power is somehow finite, making compromise and shared vision seem elusive.

Of course the republic has had times of great unity—moments when competition didn’t have to mean annihilation; indeed the idea of a balanced outcome held real value, especially when survival was at stake. One nation, indivisible, and all that.

But the trend in recent times has been in the opposite direction. And when the middle ground shrinks to irrelevance, the result is a recipe for civil war, or something like that.

In a recent viral social media post, Professor David Honig of Indiana University explains that Trump views all negotiations as a form of distributive bargaining—a zero-sum game where one party wins and the other loses. There is no middle ground; one side's victory is intrinsically linked to the other's defeat.

This approach may work in real estate, where haggling over price determines profit, but it fails spectacularly in international relations.

Honig highlights how Trump’s negotiation tactics fall short on the global stage:

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something, and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie, with each side battling for the biggest share. In Trump's world, the bargaining is for a building, construction work, or subcontractors. A successful bargain, in his view, means paying less than the seller wants. The more he saves, the more he wins.

And he explains what happened when Trump attempted distributive bargaining with China:

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM - HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

In addition, this kind of bargaining easily erodes trust. In business, a short-changed contractor can simply find another gig, but in international relations you should be thinking about your credibility and what will happen next time.

“There isn't another Canada,” Honig says.

Thus nations need long-term relationships, not one-off deals.

The alternative, Honig explains, is integrative bargaining—where both sides find mutually beneficial outcomes. Instead of fighting over one pie, both parties negotiate how many pies will be baked, at what price, and under what terms for their ongoing relationship.

As for Trump’s belief that his business experience equips him for global leadership, Honig concludes that this ultimately weakens the US because “…the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it.” Thus foreign leaders and their diplomats—who actually study negotiation—will exploit this to their advantage.

Also, for those facing off against Trump, when you consider the rank nonsense he spews, it’s easy to have the advantage of more objective facts at your disposal. It’s such a low bar.

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Meanwhile, as entrenched corporate and oligarchic interests exert increasingly disproportionate influence over America’s political and media spaces, their distinct echo-chamber fiefdoms ensure a polarized citizenry remain at each other's throats. In other words, divide and conquer.

The pattern isn’t new. During America’s first Gilded Age, mass inequality thrived on identity-based partisanship, effectively diminishing class-based political movements. And so in the current era, history repeats itself, with media outlets and social media platforms deepening societal schisms.

It’s not unlike how sports broadcasters hype up rivalries to keep audiences engaged.

Which brings me back to hockey.

I don’t recall anyone complaining about that thrilling 3-3 draw some 50 years ago. And at the height of the Cold War! Rather than disappointing, it was breathtaking.

Of course, back then, ties were still part of the game.

But the format slowly evolved. After years of tweaking overtime, and under the seemingly eternal reign of NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, the NHL introduced the shootout in 2005-06, ensuring every game had a clear winner.*

Bettman? An American. Coincidence? You decide.

Oops. Didn’t mean to turn this into an America-bashing session, but with Trump’s tariff threats against Canada and Mexico, I’m a little rankled—despite the 30-day reprieve.

Sorry, eh.

But I do take comfort in all the Americans on social media telling us to buy Canadian! It’s like the ultimate backhanded “top-shelf” compliment.

* actually, as many hockey fans know, teams who survive regular season overtime but lose in the shootout are still awarded a single point, so there goes my whole analogy :-(

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