Thread by @econnaturalist

My UNDER THE INFLUENCE: PUTTING PEER PRESSURE TO WORK will be published on January 28 by Princeton University Press. In this thread, I’ll discuss some of the book’s implications for the upcoming impeachment trial. 1/
@PrincetonUPress @a_f13nd

As psychologists have long known, the social environment powerfully shapes everything we do. Although pundits are probably right that the Senate will acquit Donald Trump, the logic of behavioral contagion suggests a less certain process than many expect. 2/

First, some background: As @TimurKuran described in his 1997 book, PRIVATE TRUTHS AND PUBLIC LIES, virtually no political experts foresaw the rapid breakup of the Soviet Union that began in the late 1980s (apart from a few cranks who’d predicted it every year for many years). 3/

In Kuran’s account, pundits overestimated the Soviet bloc’s stability largely because most people who lived in member countries voiced consistent support for their leaders in public opinion polls. 4/

But because speaking out against an oppressive regime entailed clear risks, polling data were uninformative. Telling pollsters you support the regime was just an attempt to avoid those risks. The same logic applies to comments from Republicans who must now vote on impeachment. 5/

There’s safety in numbers. The cost of speaking out depends in part on how many others are also speaking out. Some have a low threshold, but others are willing to speak out only if sufficiently many others join them. And at the moment, no senators are speaking out publicly. 6/

But in such situations, even seemingly minor provocations or small changes in the odds of punishment can unleash a prairie fire of unexpected public opposition—first, by inducing a few additional people to speak out, which then induces still others to do so, and so on. 7/

Dynamic processes like these often culminate in near complete reversals of public opinion. They explain why big changes sometimes happen so quickly and with so little forewarning; and why something similar could happen in the impeachment process. 8/

Consider a political party consisting of 10 members—call them A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J—who serve under an erratic leader they would oppose publicly if they thought it safe to do so. (Jeff Flake says that description fits some 30 of his former senate colleagues.) 9/

Each has a threshold indicating his or her willingness to speak out as a function of how many others are speaking out. A, for example, is a radical who’s willing to speak out no matter what. If we were talking about House Republicans, A would be Justin Amash. 10/

B and C are only slightly more cautious, each willing to speak out only if at least 20 percent of their fellow citizens are also speaking out. The remaining party members have higher thresholds, as summarized in the table below. 11/

Citizen A, by assumption, will speak out irrespective of what others do. But A constitutes only 10 percent of the population, and that’s below the threshold of each of the others. All but A will therefore remain silent. 12/

The stable outcome in this situation, indicated by the asterisk above the shaded entries in the table, is that only one in 10 citizens speak out, and the erratic leader survives. But now suppose some seemingly minor event causes B to become less cautious. 13/

Perhaps she is moved by an editorial arguing that continued support for the leader is incompatible with his religious faith. Or perhaps she is disturbed by the emergence of compelling new evidence of the leader’s unfitness. 14/

Whatever the cause, B’s threshold for speaking out falls from 20 percent to only 10 percent, as indicated in the table below. Since A is already speaking out, B’s slightly lower new threshold is now met, so she too speaks out. 15/

B’s move raises the percentage of citizens speaking out to 20, making C willing to speak out as well, pushing the percentage to 30. E then starts speaking out, raising the percentage speaking out to 40, and so on. 16/

In short order, a small change affecting only B causes the percentage of party members speaking out against the leader to rise from only 10 percent to 100 percent, again as indicated by the asterisk above the shaded entries in the table. This time, the leader is ousted. 17/

This stick-figure example may tell us little about how Republican senators might actually vote on impeachment. But it does suggest that unless something new happens, predictions of Trump’s acquittal in the Senate are all but certain to be borne out. 18/

But it also illuminates how even minor changes could jeopardize that prediction. Most important, it counsels those who consider the president unfit to abandon any effort to round up the 67 votes needed for removal. They should focus instead on a much more modest goal. 19/

The obvious first step would be to pressure four Republican senators to join their Democratic colleagues in a majority vote calling for a procedurally fair trial, one that would permit witnesses to be called and new documentary evidence to be introduced. 20/

Because polling suggests that large majorities in both parties favor a fair trial, failure to support this call would a politically risky step for the half-dozen or so Republican senators facing tough re-election battles in 2020. 21/

Republicans headed for retirement are also more likely to support a call for fair rules. That McConnell, Graham, and others have publicly announced highly partisan, and widely denounced, positions on this issue has further reduced the political cost of supporting fair rules. 22/

What would Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton say when questioned under oath? And what other evidence might emerge once a fair trial was under way? Apart from the president and a small number of insiders, no one knows, and that’s important. 23/

To be clear, the logic of behavioral contagion doesn’t suggest that Trump’s removal by the Senate is likely. But it does show how, under completely plausible circumstances, things could change very quickly. 24/

UNDER THE INFLUENCE isn’t about Trump's impeachment. It’s mostly about how harnessing the prodigious power of peer influence can help us meet our most pressing challenges, the climate crisis first among them.
It’s available for preorder now: 25/
amazon.com/dp/B07XKFLWCT/…