Always Ask for More than You Expect to Get

In any transaction or negotiation, you will get less than what you’re after. That is the nature of transactional relationships and negotiations. One side, almost always, wants more than the other side wants to give. You should never go into such a situation already conceding and letting the other party know that you are willing to take less than you can get.

If you are selling a car, and you would like to get a thousand dollars for it, you would never offer it for a thousand. No one would, because we all know that whatever we offer, a buyer is hopeful and will try to get it for less. If you start with a thousand as the asking price, you can bet that you’re going to be offered five hundred for it. After some haggling, you might be able to get them closer to a thousand, but in all likelihood, unless you’re a stonecold shark who truly does not give a fuck, you won’t get the full thousand you’re after. And you haven’t got a chance of getting more than a thousand. You ask for two-thousand, maybe fifteen-hundred. Then when they try talking your price down, you’ve got a better chance of getting a thousand, or more.

Ask for more than you want, knowing that you are sure to get less than you ask, and then compromise. Do not compromise beforehand. This is a basic principle, yet one which is overlooked by people who should damn well know better.

Politics is a game of negotiations, bargaining, and compromise. It is naive for any politician to expect they’ll be able to accomplish as much as they plan to, and it is naive for the public to expect them to achieve all that they promise. All politicians make lofty propositions beyond their means to deliver, particularly during election campaigns. Reality inevitably truncates or kills most dreams.

Back during the 2020 primaries, we were constantly bombarded with talking points about certain candidates’ “electability” and whether or not their policy proposals were practical. Sanders was treated by the press and his opponents as a far-left radical whose ideas were unfeasible. That was, of course, all bullshit. Sanders is a moderate social democrat who is only radical in comparison to the fascists, extreme conservatives, neoliberals, and corporatists that dominate modern politics. It was a common refrain, that Medicare for All was too ambitious a plan. As if ambition were a bad thing, as if “ambitious” meant “unachievable,” or as if because something is ambitious it is not worth doing. The genocidal human traffickers who founded this nation were ambitious. The freedom fighters who led the war for the abolition of slavery, and then those who fought for civil rights for all citizens, were ambitious. The men and women who planned and executed the first forays into human space travel were ambitious.

You need to be ambitious and fight for what might be a long-shot, not only because it is necessary to eventually reach that long-shot goal, but because of how far you can get in the interim, and because if you don’t try you will never get anywhere. Plans proposed by progressive activists for remedying the climate catastrophe, providing universal healthcare, and undoing the systems that have enforced centuries of racist policies are all ambitious plans. They are all also necessary to our survival as individuals, as a nation, and as a species. Deriding a plan or policy as too ambitious is the same as saying that the goal is not worth the effort or that we don’t deserve it. The people who attack Medicare for All as being “too ambitious” or “too radical” are either manipulators or cowards; either they are speaking out of personal interests because they or those they serve have investments in the healthcare industry, or they are people who believe the nonsense of those naysayers and allow it to steer them away from what is right.

We were sold the narrative repeatedly, that what the Democrats needed to take down Deranged Turd was a moderate, someone familiar who offers little and makes no particularly ambitious promises. Maybe Sanders wouldn’t have been able to push through his Medicare for All policy. But, maybe he could have. It was never impossible, and in aiming for that goal we might not have gotten as far as we needed, but we could get further than we are. By going with the “moderate” candidate who promises that “nothing would fundamentally change” under his presidency, we have little to hope for. No ambition. We’re offered status quo and stagnation, and the trend of history indicates that we’ll get even less than that.

I cannot find an example of a politician who has promised less and set expectations lower than Joe Biden. Credit where it’s due, he’s come rhetorically closer to reasonability on matters such as confronting the climate catastrophe. He’s not gone as far as we need, but in fairness, no one has. No one in politics and business, anyway, and virtually every politician is also a businessperson. On nearly every other issue, Biden refuses to commit to the popular policies of those expected to vote for him. Even in the midst of a pandemic and mass unemployment, he is still opposed to universal healthcare, still in favor of employer-provided healthcare, an uneconomic failed system of increasing scarcity.

Trump is the drunk douche at the bar, boasting of his strength, his general greatness, his virility and power, who, when called on his bullshit, by someone looking to fight or some unfortunate soul morbidly desperate to fuck, proves to be weak, impotent, and promptly passes out in his own vomit. Biden is the mopey sadsack at the bar, oversharing about his insecurities, his weaknesses, and his limp little prick. Both are garbage people no one wants to spend time around, but, unfortunately, the loudmouth jackoff is comparatively more charismatic and has a better shot at enjoying his night.

There’s been a prevalent notion among those of the Left, trying to make the best of a terrible situation, that it will be possible, even easy, to push Biden further to the left. People genuinely believe that progressive activists will be able to sway and influence Biden in the right direction after he is president. I am not aware of there ever being precedent of any politician being convinced to better serve the will of their constituents after they’ve been elected. Have you ever experienced or heard of a case where a president, or any political leader, delivered more than they promised? It’s rare that a politician even comes close to meeting expectations, let alone exceeding them. There is little to no chance that he will make an about-face and suddenly become the progressive leader we need once in office. He’s promised so very little, and like every politician he’ll give far less.

That’s not to say that I don’t want Biden to win. I do. Or, I definitely don’t want Turd to win, so I prefer a Biden victory. The way I prefer a punch to the face over a sledgehammer to the balls. I don’t want Trump to get another four years. I want him to die of a heart attack on the toilet, failing in his struggle to pass years of backed-up Big Macs. By all means, vote for Biden. We’re moderately better off with him. But, demand more. The idea that we’ll be able to get better from him after electing him is delusional. We need to force him to promise more, if it’s not already too late, because we know that we are going to get much less.