Table of Contents
Josh Lyman would state as an iron law of presidential politics
You run to your base in the primary and then you pivot to the center. You calibrate so you pick up more on your right than you lose on the left or vice versa. It's not like they're going to jump over to the other guy. So, they bitch and moan, but in the end, in the next primary, they are just like Charlie Brown thinking that this time Lucy won't pull the ball away at the last second and send the poor schmuck stumbling in the dirt.
(West Wing Josh or Doonesbury Josh, your pick)
But Trump doesn't play by other people's rules. That has been his superpower all along. In fact, he doesn't play by rules at all. Rules are rules, and for there to even be rules they have to have rhyme and reason that can be articulated. Trump is not that coherent.
What he is, however, is a con man and a grifter who has the gift of being able to cool the mark himself. He smells the weakness of others and acts on it.
As he rolled to his victory in the 2016 primary, he started with his usual braggadocio, bravado and provocation. He started to hear that his audience was saying that "he tells it like it is." So, he ratchets his act up a notch. He insults John McCain's war record. Mocks "Lil' Marco. It's like progressing from throwing your cigarette butt on the restaurant floor, to lighting up a cigar at your table, refusing to put it out and then suing for millions because they refused you service.
Habituation and Trump's Endless Craving for Adulation
Habituation is a phenomenon where repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to a diminished response. Just like with addictive drugs, the more you take, the more you need to get the same effect. This concept plays a significant role in the dynamic between Donald Trump and his base.
Trump's base has two strong habits:
- Craving to pour their discontent and anger into rage against the targets that Trump identifies, regardless of the lack of obvious connections between their troubles and the identified targets. This provides a simple roadmap that doesn't require much thought.
- Drawing validation from their feelings of alienation, being looked down upon, revulsion against heterodox treatment of social gender, xenophobic fear of immigrants, economic insecurity, and resentment of loss of social standing.
As the base becomes habituated to a constant level of stimulation, the experience of validation diminishes. To maintain the experience of validation, increasing levels of stimulation are required. However, this comes with side effects. Validation can lead to justification for action, such as the violence of January 6, which carries consequences. Unlike Trump, not everyone is able to escape those consequences, and at the extreme, actions can be fatal.
Trump's craving for adulation is unaffected by negative feedback and is unquenchable. He outputs rage, his base consumes it, providing positive feedback, and he repeats the process until his audience becomes accustomed to the baseline and the applause line falls flat. This cycle continues endlessly.
Unlike Trump, his audience is sensitive to negative feedback from outsiders, as they are not uniform in their tolerance for the reactions they experience outside the MAGA movement.
If Trump attempts to gain more adulation by reversing course, it is uncertain whether he will succeed. Any gains from the left would come at the expense of the reward from his base, as he has exaggerated the dichotomies between the two sides.
System controls theory provides a theoretical framework and analogies that I'll let my friend claude.ai explain that.
Positive feedback is a process that occurs within a system where the effects of a small disturbance on the system cause an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. This type of feedback loop exacerbates the effects of changes, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle that can significantly destabilize the system. The destabilization occurs because positive feedback amplifies the initial change, pushing the system further away from its equilibrium state, potentially leading to exponential growth, increasing oscillations, chaotic behavior, or other divergences from equilibrium[4][6].
In the context of systems theory, positive feedback is defined as a loop gain that is positive and above 1, which typically results in exponential growth or accelerating trends within the system. This can lead to a "runaway" or "snowball" effect, where the system moves further away from its original state[6]. For example, in digital electronics, positive feedback is used to force voltages away from intermediate voltages into '0' and '1' states. However, thermal runaway, a type of positive feedback, can destroy semiconductor junctions[4].
Positive feedback does not necessarily imply instability of an equilibrium, as stable on and off states may exist in positive-feedback architectures. However, in the real world, positive feedback loops typically do not cause ever-increasing growth but are modified by limiting effects of some sort. Despite this, positive feedback loops are sources of growth, explosion, erosion, and collapse in systems. A system with an unchecked positive loop ultimately will destroy itself, which is why there are so few of them. Usually, a negative loop will kick in sooner or later to counteract the positive feedback[4].
An example of positive feedback in the natural world is the ice-albedo feedback mechanism, where melting ice reduces the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), leading to increased absorption of solar radiation, further warming, and more ice melting. This feedback loop can significantly contribute to the acceleration of global warming[8].
In summary, positive feedback destabilizes a system by amplifying initial changes, leading to exponential growth or accelerating trends that push the system away from its equilibrium state. While some systems may incorporate mechanisms to limit or counteract positive feedback, unchecked positive feedback can lead to system collapse or drastic shifts to new equilibrium states[4][6][8].
Citations:
[1] https://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/2c.html
[2] https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_301-1.pdf?pdf=inline+link
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/positive-feedback
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback
[5] https://www.mrgscience.com/ess-topic-13-energy-and-equilibria.html
[6] https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2023-positive-feedback-instability
[7] https://bio.libretexts.org/Courses/Lumen_Learning/Anatomy_and_Physiology_I_(Lumen)/04:_Module_2-_Homeostasis/4.02:_Homeostasis_and_Feedback_Loops
[8] https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Feedback_cycle
[9] https://www.albert.io/blog/positive-negative-feedback-loops-biology/
[10] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/positive-feedback
[11] https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_301-1
[12] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10968932_Roles_of_Positive_and_Negative_Feedback_in_Biological_Systems
[13] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05725-1
[14] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme807/node/753
[15] https://gml.noaa.gov/outreach/info_activities/pdfs/PSA_analyzing_a_feedback_mechanism.pdf
[16] https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Human_Biology/Human_Biology_(Wakim_and_Grewal)/10%253A_Introduction_to_the_Human_Body/10.7%253A_Homeostasis_and_Feedback
[17] https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/cell-communication-and-cell-cycle/feedback/a/homeostasis
[18] https://study.com/academy/lesson/feedback-loop-definition-examples-quiz.html
[19] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/positive-feedback-loop
