Games

What kind of poker? Reckless showboating like Texas Hold’em, or long-drawn-out strategic contests like classical Draw? I would have said ‘Chess, playing black’ of Putin. The US does something aggressive and hostile, like expanding NATO, encouraging Georgia to attack Russia, provoking and maybe assisting a coup in Ukraine, trying to get at the Tartus naval base by encouraging civil war in Syria; and Putin responds, usually pretty conservatively, taking what he needs and leaving the rest. That’s so far — a really dumb move by the US may tempt Putin to go on the offensive.

As for the Democratic Party establishment, I’d say after they bestirred themselves enough to capture ‘The Resistance’, they have gone back to sleep. Thus, they may be said to be playing Possum. But sincerely. I don’t consider concocting fables about Russian spies and saboteurs to be serious politics.

”What game would you say Democrats are playing?”

”Nomic”?

”Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting.

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.

— Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment”

Democrats are playing golf. In which one tries to get the lowest score possible.

Dems are playing the same games as everybody else and getting the results they desire (most of the time).

“What game would you say Democrats are playing” Answer: tiddlywinks or hide and go seek.

– or in other words – does it really matter what game they are playing – as it is the spectators -(the voters) – who decide who is ‘the winner’.

And the difference is just if the voters are -(for example) ‘French’ or ‘American’.

To quote one of my favorite poets, Gary Snyder–who years ago in a conversation expressed his delight that I loved the poem containing this phrase, “Riprap”–the Dems are playing “an endless four-dimensional Game of Go”.

I was going to suggest 52 Pickup for Trump (I agree with Sophist that Calvinball is too structured, and I’d add also too creative and collaborative), but I fear SC@15 nailed it. Definitely Trump: The Game.

Russian roulette.

The Deimocrats aren’t playing a game. The Democrats have lost connection to the game server and are trying to reboot their cable modem. Meanwhile a simple scripted bot is running on the server, starting from their last known position and emulating their reactions in order to give the impression they are still playing.

The democrats are playing football with Lucy.

Everyone is playing chicken, albeit with different opponents.

@15
”I invite you to live the fantasy! Feel the power! And, make the deals!”)

That’s it!

Trump invited the American people ‘to lose’ – and -(NOT the majority) accepted the invitation.

I’m pretty sure it’s Go Fish.

I don’t think the Dems are playing Animal Crossing. I used to watch my daughter playing AC for hours on end (well, I didn’t watch for hours on end, that would be both creepy and very boring). When I asked her what was so great about it, she explained that you have a mortgage on a property, and to pay it you have to go to different places to work to earn money, and if you’ve got money over you can buy stuff for yourself, only in between times other characters ask you to do things for them, so then you have to go to other places and do those things as well. Why it’s never caught on with adult players I can’t imagine.

Anyway, AC would be far too constructive and outward-looking. I think they’re playing a variant of the ‘shopping list’ game, where each player has to repeat the list of items and add one to it…

“OK, I think Hillary lost
– because of Comey
– because of the New York Times
– because of Bernie, I mean obviously
– because of the Berniebros which is an issue in its own right
– because of sexism which obviously overlaps with the last one, but we did agree we could have this one
– because of the electoral college, I mean look at the popular vote…”

Hours of fun.

The Democrats and the Republicans are still playing “Monopoly”, and the Republicans just put a chintzy, gaudy, abandoned casino on “Boardwalk”.

2500 Boardwalk

Trump and the republicans play TEGWAR — the exciting game without any rules, from Bang the Drum Slowly.

The Dems think there are supposed to be rules. They play Go Fish.

Illuminati? (From Steve Jackson Games)

At current state of play, the Democrats control Christopher Steele (ex British spook) who they use to control rogue elements in the Russian spy agencies (or did, until said rogue elements got prosecuted for treason). Trump on the other hand, has control of Putin and the non-rogue elements of the FSB (or possibly the other way round). Meanwhile, the Gnomes of Zurich…

I’m sorry, but Trump isn’t playing Calvinball. That is a fun games in which both players use their imaginations to gain an advantage. Trump is playing Fizzbin.

and soullite@33
I sooo – understand you –
as it feels just like yesterday – when in school this dude pretended that he makes ‘the man’ quake in ‘their boots’ and I thought too – ‘he must be doing something right’ –
and sooo I even pretended to date him – until he told me – that the whole ‘sticking it to the man thing’ was just for the lulz – and that he actually was working very heavily on becoming ‘the man’ too – and in order of becoming ‘the man’ he was even willing to go out with a girl called ‘Natalia Veselnitskaya’ – who was a total ‘loser’ and so I knew that the dude was a total loser – and completely useless to make me rich and famous – and so I became ‘a democrat’.

And there is something really cool with these ‘Democrats’ – they at least brush their teeth –
(what the lulzloser never did!)

only after I told him that me dating him was just ‘a game’ or favorite game

Re: Don Jr.
I don’t know what game he is playing but I have a couple of songs he might be playing.
Jailhouse Rock
I Fought The Law and the Law Won.

Once again, I want a ‘like’ button.

At the risk of putting a jinx on the whole thing, or indeed the world, I fear we’re in the first round or so of Nuclear War.

– and as I once said – you meet a lot of dudes like Trump Junior on Spring Break – and they always play the game: ‘Blöd’ – and the greatness of this game is – that it has a name in a ‘fureign language’ so they don’t even understand what they are – if one tells them:
You are sooo ‘blöd’ –
and then they ask: ‘What did you just say’? – and you always can say:
‘Ich sehe was was du nicht siehst’… and then they nod and say:
Aha!
You speak Swedish – so you must be ‘Swedish’?
And then you nod and say:
‘You are sooo blöd’!
– and then your mom -(or your dad) – comes by – very angry and tells you NOT to make fun of such good looking American Dudes – as they one day might become the American President and then they will try to take revenge for all the games we played with them…
of

Or in what other (‘advanced’) country on earth could somebody like Trump be elected?

Pretty much any of them. Like I’ve set out many times, every person active on the hard right has obvious clinical cognitive problems, largely on the empathy-impairment spectrum [autism/narcissism/sociopathy]. Right-wing parties are often made up of a spectrum from “soft” to crypto- or not-so-crypto-fascists, but what often also happens is that the “soft” centrist/leftist/care-about-actual-people-and-the-gap-between-theory-and-reality flank collapses and you’re left with the hard right. Who are, from the above, entirely without exception severely impaired.

Since public perception of political parties lags the reality of the same political party… for a transitional period here you’re going to have a party made up entirely or near-entirely of severely disturbed and unfit people [theresa may, tony abbott] that nevertheless has the public credibility of its prior incarnation. In that case, during that period, you’re going to get public support for parties with leaders who resemble trump… or if not Trump’s specific problems, then some other equivalently-but-differently impaired person.

33. Congratulations. You’re now a permanent parody feature on Wonkette. Keep the comedy flowing.

@47
‘And what game is CT’s boy Macron! playing?’

On the 14th of July he will play the game:

‘Feed the ‘Trump’ with something it really doesn’t like to eat – at Jules Verne’…

soullite

I long ago came to the conclusion that the Democrats were deliberately ineffectual …

I am not disposed to adopt that conclusion; and discovering that you came to it long ago does not change my mind. You announce the conclusion you came to long ago as if that should count for something with the people who read your remark; I can’t imagine why.

There’s a reason so many people turned to Trump.

You announce this as if it was an important point to make to readers who imagine that people turned to Trump for no reason. Obviously the people who voted for Trump had reasons for doing so (although not necessarily good ones); equally, the people who voted for Clinton, or for third-party candidates, or not at all, also had reasons for their choices (although not necessarily good ones). It is unlikely that all the people who voted for Trump did so for the same reason. Perhaps you are imagining that everybody who did what you did acted for the same reasons; that would be unwise.

And hell, given that every single actor in this system with any kind of power is obviously terrified of Trump, well, that has to be good for people like me. The great and the mighty have been fucking us long enough–ruining our lives and justifying it to themselves by pointing to rising incomes in the third world (strange, though, that they themselves keep getting richer). If Trump makes them quake in their boots, he must be doing something right.

I suppose this is something else you would like to imagine, that Trump scares powerful people. I don’t know what evidence you imagine supports that conclusion. I know there are people without power who have been explicit about how Trump scares them.

Abe in Japan seems remarkably Trumpian, with a dash of Tojo.
Tener in Brazil has a lot of Trumpesque qualities, though admittedly he was installed by coup rather than elected.
I don’t know if nastywoman considers Africans advanced enough, but Zuma was Trumpesque before anyone knew there was going to be a Trump — and now we look set to get an actual billionaire gangster, Ramaphosa, to replace him!
It seems to me that if you have no alternative (and loads of Americans didn’t deem Clinton an alternative) then you have to vote for what you get, even if it wears an odious orange wig and is even more incompetent than its predecessor.

Whatever game the Dems are playing, the refs are on the other side.

Are the US and Russia not still playing Twilight Struggle?

I’m pretty sure Z wasn’t suggesting that other leaders were just like Trump in every particular. That would be weird, as they come from other countries with somewhat other social pathologies.

But he showed examples in the corrupt and obviously unfit to lead vein just fine. Its true that Trump does that hugely.

Well, he isn’t PM (yet), but surely the resemblances between Boris Johnson and Trump (even apart from the physical ) are remarkable.

> And hell, given that every single actor in this system with any kind of power is obviously terrified of Trump, well, that has to be good for people like me.

So who are these all-powerful people who were sitting pretty before Trump and are quaking in their boots now? No don’t answer that, I’m being facetious. There are none. Their only concern before the election was how many miles they could ride Trump like a little pony before he collapsed, and their only remaining one now is how much Trump’s implosion might affect their timelines. “People like me” are the only ones who should be terrified.