Outside the Beltway

Line of the Day

Trump's negotiation style edition.

· Sunday, June 2, 2019 · 5 comments

“One of Trump’s major failings is that he only has a hammer,” said Andrea Schneider, a professor of law at Marquette University who focuses on negotiations and has studied Trump’s tactics. “He has no capacity of looking at the long term and recognizing that the vast majority of our interactions in life are repeat interactions. I joke with my students that if you treat negotiations as a one-shot deal, it will be. No one will ever want to deal with you again.”

WaPo: Trump’s reliance on pressure tactics is showing diminishing returns

Indeed.

Trump’s approach to negotiations (his alleged area of expertise) is about as sophisticated as a kid with a new toy who bullies his friends into playing by his rules because it is the only way to get to play with the new toy.

There is no consideration that a) after a while people get tired of ridiculous concessions, b) that it is possible to find other sources of toys, and c) once you have been a consistent jerk, no wants to play you any more, new toys or no.

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. CSK says:
    Sunday, 2 June 2019 at 17:42

    “…after a while, people get tired of ridiculous concessions…”
    This will never, ever happen with the committed Trumpkin, because he or she has far too much emotionally invested in Trump as THE GREATEST PRESIDENT EVAH to admit that Trump has done or said anything that wasn’t wonderful. It’s not going to happen.

    3
  2. Teve says:
    Sunday, 2 June 2019 at 17:56

    @CSK: in the new Richard Wolff book he claims that Steve Bannon told people that Trump would lose his supporters when enough evidence came out the Trump was not in fact a billionaire. supposedly Bannon said that when his supporters realize he’s not worth 10 billion dollars, he’s not worth any billion dollars, he’s a crook who’s maybe still worth like 50 million dollars, they would realize they’ve been had and turn on him.

    I think Bannon is wrong about that.

    2
  3. CSK says:
    Sunday, 2 June 2019 at 19:00

    @Teve: You are correct. It will be dismissed as Fake News.

    2
  4. Gustopher says:
    Monday, 3 June 2019 at 00:55

    @Teve: If you can get a billionaire lifestyle out of fifty million dollars, you know how to live.

  5. Neil J Hudelson says:
    Monday, 3 June 2019 at 13:43

    about as sophisticated as a kid with a new toy who bullies his friends into playing by his rules because it is the only way to get to play with the new toy.

    Without any evidence to back me up, somehow I’m 100% sure that this exact scene happened a hundred times in Trump’s childhood.

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