In his call to abolish Senate filibusters (“It’s time to end the filibuster — it blocks even routine governance,” Nov. 26), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent personifies the basis of current dysfunction in U.S. politics: lack of trust, empathy, and insight concerning anyone with different world views. He ascribes all his own self-centered, power-grabbing motives to Democrats, and uses this belief to justify acting first — like launching a nuclear first strike because one believes the other side thinks the same way and would do so, given the chance.
In portraying Democrats and Republicans as unified, warring blocks, Bessent doesn’t see or cannot accept that some Republican senators can reasonably support retaining filibusters and that the same is true among Democrats, and that the question is complex.
Further, to serve his argument, he misconstrues the repeated prisoner’s dilemma game. Unlike a onetime Prisoner’s Dilemma encounter, repetition by the same players enables understanding an opponent’s mind and possibly building trust, so strategies like tit-for-tat or occasional forgiveness of betrayal — strategies that can lead to maintained cooperation — outperform the constant mutual betrayal that is the consequence of Bessent’s limited world view.
Abolishing filibusters can be discussed — but not based on Bessent’s argument — and it’s not at all clear that doing so improved the quality of judicial and other political appointees.
Jeffrey Dean,
Cleveland Heights
