Interesting observation from his recent New York Times column:
Populism thrives on a zero-sum mind-set. The central story that populists tell is: They are out to destroy us. Populist leaders invariably inflame ethnic bigotry to mobilize their own supporters.
America’s populist in chief, Donald Trump, exemplifies this mentality. Trump grew up in a zero-sum world. In the world of New York real estate, there’s a fixed amount of land. Trump didn’t have to invent a new concept, just screw the other side. In 2017, the Vox writer Dylan Matthews and his colleagues read all of Trump’s books on business and politics, and concluded that zero-sum thinking is the core of his mind-set. “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” Trump and his co-author wrote in “Think Big and Kick Ass.” “That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal you win — not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself.”
MAGA is the zero-sum concept in political form. What’s good for immigrants is bad for the American-born. What’s good for Black people is bad for whites. Trade deals are exploitation. Our NATO allies are out to screw us. Every day for Trump is an Us/Them dominance game.
Zero-sum thinking is surging on the left as well. A generation of college students has been raised on the dogma that life is a contest between groups — oppressor versus oppressed, colonizers versus colonized.
Read the rest here. The column is actually about what Joe Biden needs to do to win in 2024, but I found this “zero-sum” analysis interesting.
Actually, I don’t think that’s true in real estate. The true art of the real-estate deal is *adding value* to the land, which involves adding value to what other people can do with the land. You benefit by helping other people benefit. Trump figures that he can capture all those benefits for himself, but that can only get you so far, as others start to realize that there’s no gain from dealing with *him*. I agree that it’s how Trump thinks, but it’s a flaw of Trump, not of real estate.