Escalation Dominance and Theory of Mind

At some point the siege of Minnesota by federal government agents will end. To think about how that will happen, we need to consider what the government, namely Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi Noem are trying to achieve with the siege.

Trump famously refuses to say what his plans are for anything outside his magnificent and beautiful ballroom, and he is an unreliable narrator. His whims direct his actions. Miller’s actions are directed toward ethnic cleansing. Noem seems enamoured of the violence itself.

A stated objective is to remove undocumented immigrants who are also criminals. Miller’s objective of arresting 3000 people a day. Suggesting otherwise are the unfocused attacks on citizens, documented immigrants, children, along with secret and unconstitutional rules of engagement.

Rather, the objective seems to be to subdue the population of Minnesota or to punish them for voting against Trump and welcoming immigrants into their community.

The tactics the feds are using to achieve their objective seem likely to fail. Josh Marshall and Jamelle Bouie have helpful insights.

Marshall argues that the administration believes they have escalation dominance and therefore can crush Minnesotans until they give up. I’m not clear on what their criteria are for giving up, and, I suspect, neither is the administration. It is true that they have escalation dominance as regards instruments of violence.

But as of this writing, all Senate Democrats but two have said they will vote against funding for DHS. Republicans seem to be wavering too. More than half the Democratic House caucus have signed an impeachment resolution against Kristi Noem. They are reading the polls, in which approval of ICE plunged after the murder of Alex Pretti.

This post begins a thread of indicators that a wide variety of people are turning against ICE.

It’s not mentioned there, but online knitting forums offer a variety of “Fuck Ice” projects.

If the administration believes that it has escalation dominance and that escalation dominance with regard to violence is the only thing that matters, then it is unlikely to end the siege any time soon.

In a thread that starts here, Bouie argues that at this point, he would back off if he ran the administration.

But they can’t.

They don’t have a theory of mind for their opponents. They can’t conceive of government other than by force. They can’t imagine that people would endanger themselves for their neighbors. That is why they are constantly looking for the mysterious funders of the resistance.

They also seem to believe their claim that most people agree with them.

And, as follows from Marshall’s argument, they can’t back off.

A big chunk of ICE and other agencies is now in Minnesota. They are also kidnapping and deporting people in other parts of the country. They can make Minnesota their emblematic site of state terror only if they win. And they have no clear theory of what that means. Perhaps it is enough to show the rest of the country that anyone may be picked up at any time, but just as Minnesota and other localities have mobilized, the nation is reacting.

The administration’s blinkered viewpoint of violence as the only means of escalation dominance and inability to understand their opposition are potential weak points. And they must achieve their ends before national opinion turns against them.

Brent Devereau posted a similar argument about what rightwingers think the Insurrection Act will do for them.