Take Back Control and Make Me Great Again
It really doesn’t matter if you have the facts and the numbers
Have you ever played The Resistance?
It’s similar to deception games like Werewolf or Mafia. In it, players are assigned one of two secret roles—those who are in the Resistance and those who are government spies attempting to disrupt the Resistance. Only the spies know the identity of the other spies.
The game is a combination of logic, deduction, persuasion, and reading people. There are five rounds, each round the person whose turn it is (the Mission Leader) selects a number of people to go on a, “Mission.”
Everybody votes on whether they think this is a trustworthy team. If agreed upon, the mission proceeds and the members of the mission secretly submit one of two cards: Succeed or Fail. If the team isn’t agreed upon, the mission leader is transferred to the next player who proposes another team.
Upon mission completion, if there are enough Fail cards, the mission has failed and the spies have thwarted the mission. Otherwise, the mission succeeds.
Three successes give the Resistance victory, while three failures mean the spies have managed to destroy the Resistance’s efforts.
This One Time, in Thailand…
In a ten player game, there are four spies. The final two missions require five team members and two fail cards to fail.
We were on our fourth mission and the success/fail cards were being revealed. The cards were revealed and…three fail cards were revealed! The mission had failed. The game was tied two success to two failures and it was down to the final mission.
But the spies had made a crucial mistake! Three fail cards means that, of the five players who went on the mission, three were spies.
So the solution then is simple. Take the other five players on the next mission and only one spy would be in the team. It didn’t matter who it was, there wouldn’t be enough spies to fail the mission. The game is done! Checkmate!
Or so I thought.
Not being one of the spies, I excitedly pointed out this sure-win scenario to everyone. Another player, recognizing this as well, also jumped on the enthusiasm train.
“I don’t know. I don’t trust you,” said a Belgian player who, as it turned out, was not a spy.
“It doesn’t MATTER if you trust me. It’s just math! We can’t lose!” I said.
One of the spies, whom I could tell had also recognized the imminent loss, capitalized on the opportunity for chaos, “it’s not guaranteed!”
“No, it’s 100% probability we will win! What are you even saying?! Are you stupid?” I was raising my voice, aggravated that this was even being discussed.
And so it went. For maybe 15, maybe 30 mins. It felt like hours.
Eventually, there was so much chaos and distrust that the sure-fire team was voted down and the spies won. Dystopian rule of oppressive government continues to reign.
Emotions Rule
The fact that Trump is universally under-qualified to lead a country is irrelevant. The fact that Britain has financially benefitted, not lost, from being a part of the EU is irrelevant. The fact that Climate Change is real and agreed upon by the scientific community is irrelevant. The fact that a lack of broader gun control has clearly led to more gun-related violence is irrelevant.
Facts just get in the way of emotions. So much so that there is a fervent backlash to experts, science, and logic.
“I think people in this country have had enough of experts.” — Michael Gove, Justice Secretary campaigning for #TakeControl
In the end, it’s about emotions, it’s about identity, and it’s about dignity. A person identifies with being an American, a Brit, a car owner, a gun owner. They feel wronged, attacked, distrustful of those they perceive to be attacking the very fabric of their identity—the things that make them them.
The things that make them great.
Throw all the infographics and charts at your opposition you want. The more you do, the more it solidifies their distrust, the more it feels like you’re finding ways to take things away from them.
What Trump and Johnson offer is hope. Hope that their identity and lifestyles, which seem to have been continually under attack for years, can regain its former glory.
I’m not sure I could have done anything differently to change the outcome of that game of Resistance.
Maybe a more measured early assessment of the game instead would have helped. Maybe instead of dismissing and chastizing those that didn’t see the facts in plain sight, I could try to understand what they needed to feel heard.
Maybe it won’t make a difference but I’m going to try that next time.
