There’s a quiet kind of heartbreak in watching adults forget how cooperation works.
In Hamilton County, our school board once operated like most good partnerships: through conversation, compromise, and a shared sense of purpose.
But recently, as our board shifted into explicit partisanship, the language of teamwork gave way to the logic of control.
At two meetings ago, nearly every leadership role was turned over with members aligned strictly along ideological lines. These new leaders now guide not only policy but tone, finance and hiring decisions. Instead of open collaboration, we are watching a system act out what game theorists would call a zero-sum game — a scenario where one side believes that for them to win, everyone else must lose.
In game theory, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is the classic story of two players who could both prosper if they trusted one another, but who so fear betrayal that they both defect. The result? Everyone suffers.