The Rules of the Game

One of the more common statements one hears about President Trump is that he violates norms. This is considered praise by some and criticism by others, which may explain why its such a common refrain.

A very important lesson in President Trump's apparent War on Norms, however, is this: The Rules are not the Game.

And this is true of all of the games that come immediately to mind for me. The rules define the proper, and often the expected, way to play the game, but they are not the game itself. The score is determined by how well the players meet the game's goals, not how assiduously they observe the rules. And this is even more true in games where many of the rules are informal, and/or there isn't a referee to assess penalties.

The flap over then-candidate Trump refusing to release his tax returns is a primary example of this. While such releases had become expected, Mr. Trump had no desire to do so, and as he racked up more and more primacy wins, he felt less and less pressure to. After all, whatever votes he lost for not doing so weren't enough to derail his march to the nomination. He scored enough delegates to win, and that was all that mattered. The fact that he's flouted a norm didn't change the final score.

While there has been a lot of hand-wringing over this disregard for the rules, the understanding that the rules are not the game is perhaps overdue, even if there are better ways of demonstrating it.