The Illusion of the Game: How Political Parties Play to Win by Not Winning

America’s political system appears to operate on a simple premise: party-affiliated candidates compete in elections, voters decide the outcome, and the winner governs. On the surface, this looks like a competitive, finite game—with clear rules, winners, and losers. But that perception is not just misleading; it is central to the strategy of the two dominant political parties. Behind the curtain, Democratic and Republican party leadership are not playing to win each election. They are playing an infinite game—one designed to preserve their power, relevance, and economic engine indefinitely.

About the Author:  Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.

As James Carse explains in Finite and Infinite Games, finite games are played to win, while infinite games are played to continue playing. In American politics, party leadership is engaged in an infinite game—one that sustains their power and relevance regardless of electoral outcomes. The true danger lies not in playing one game or the other, but in the misalignment: voters, donors, and candidates are led to believe they are playing a finite game with clear stakes and outcomes, when in reality, they are participating in an infinite game designed to preserve the system itself. This misalignment distorts expectations, breeds disillusionment, and ensures the public continues to play a game they cannot win. U.S. citizens are not naïve—but our civic education reinforces the finite game narrative, and people naturally want to believe that following the rules they were taught in high school and reinforced at home will produce fair outcomes.

The Political Duopoly: A Profitable Infinite Game

Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl's influential report, Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America, frames the U.S. political system as a protected duopoly. Unlike in a competitive marketplace, where new entrants and innovation benefit consumers, the two major parties have constructed barriers that prevent real competition. From closed primaries to restrictive ballot access and debate exclusion rules, the system is engineered to maintain the status quo.

The result is a multi-billion-dollar political industry with entrenched interests. Political consultants, media outlets, pollsters, and party-affiliated nonprofits all feed off the permanent campaign cycle. Losing an election does not harm the parties; it often helps. It drives more donations, increases urgency, and fuels outrage that strengthens partisan identity—ensuring the game continues.

The Theater of Competition

To sustain the illusion, parties must convince the public that every election is a must-win battle for the soul of the nation. They cast opponents as existential threats and encourage tribalism. They amplify emotional appeals, stage political theater, and weaponize outrage to keep the base engaged. Candidates are coached to spark division, not resolution.

This theater is essential to the business model. Emotional intensity translates to engagement, which translates to donations, votes, and—critically—continued allegiance to the party structure. The illusion of a finite game motivates voters and donors to pour billions into campaigns, despite minimal progress on core issues after the election.

Political Theater Example	Why It Matters	Infinite Game Angle
Government Shutdown Threats	Disrupts essential services, grabs headlines, and sparks partisan blame.	Sparks fear and urgency to raise money; rarely results in structural change.
Supreme Court Confirmation Battles	Mobilizes base with culture war flashpoints during televised hearings.	Reinforces partisan loyalty while maintaining judicial appointment leverage.
Election Fraud Claims (2020)	Undermines trust in elections and incites widespread activism and donations.	Drives long-term engagement and donations without changing the electoral process.
Climate Crisis Fundraising Blasts	Urgency-driven emails and social posts forecast an irreversible catastrophe to spark donations.	Activates donor base and cements urgency narrative without legislative follow-through.
“No Kings” Protests (2024–2025)	Frames judicial decisions as democratic threats; rallies progressive outrage and the media.	Grows partisan identity and funding while court rulings proceed unaffected.

Author’s Note: Care was taken to include examples from both major political parties. The purpose is not to assign blame, but to illustrate how political theater—regardless of party affiliation—is a necessary mechanism for sustaining the two-party duopoly and its infinite game strategy.

The Game Behind the Game: Rules That Maintain Control

Beneath the surface, party leadership works diligently to maintain the rules that make the infinite game possible:

• Gerrymandering ensures that most districts are noncompetitive, reducing the risk of party turnover and reinforcing extremism.

• Winner-take-all ballots discourage third-party viability and force binary choices.

• Restrictive ballot access laws and debate rules block meaningful competition.

• Closed and semi-closed primaries allow a narrow, ideologically extreme minority to dominate candidate selection.

These rules persist not by accident, but by incentive design—protecting the duopoly through structural entrenchment. As Nobel laureate economist James M. Buchanan, the leading voice in Public Choice theory, explained, political actors respond to incentives just like market participants. “Politics without romance,” he argued, means we must analyze institutions not by their stated intentions, but by how they actually function. Reform is unlikely when those empowered by the system are also its primary beneficiaries.

The Primary System: The Crown Jewel of The Infinite Game

Among all the rules sustaining the political duopoly, the primary system is arguably the most effective tool for maintaining the illusion of voter control. While political parties no longer directly determine who appears on the ballot, the structure of the Primary and Caucus (P&C) system empowers a narrow, highly motivated ideological base—often unrepresentative of the general electorate. This fringe base acts as a gatekeeper, shaping candidate viability long before most voters engage.

Wealthy or media-savvy candidates—like Donald Trump in 2016—can bypass traditional party networks by appealing directly to this subset, effectively hacking the system. In doing so, they weaken the party's constitutional focus while feeding a broader dynamic: outrage-based fundraising. Candidates who generate controversy tend to drive higher donations, stronger tribal engagement, and more partisan loyalty—regardless of policy outcomes.

Originally reformed in 1972 under the McGovern-Fraser Commission to promote transparency and voter input, the P&C system has gradually devolved into a mechanism of ideological capture. It rewards those who energize extreme voters, discourages moderation, and reduces incentives for coalition-building. The result is a political funnel: candidates must pass through narrow partisan filters before ever facing the general electorate.

This undermines the general election’s role in representative democracy. By the time November arrives, voters are often left choosing between candidates handpicked by the fringes. The vote still exists, but its relevance is diluted. As constitutional scholar Yuval Levin notes, “Primaries have become a bad fit for the American Constitutional system.”

This misalignment reveals the core strategy behind the political duopoly: party leadership is not primarily focused on winning each election (a finite game), but on preserving long-term access to influence and financial capital (an infinite game). So long as the parties retain control over the nomination process and the campaign infrastructure, they remain gatekeepers to political power—regardless of whether they win or lose individual races.

In this model, polarization becomes profitable. Conflict drives engagement. Fundraising thrives on urgency and fear. And the billion-dollar political industry continues to grow—ensuring that, win or lose, the game goes on.

Why They Don’t Fix It

You may wonder why well-known problems like gerrymandering, campaign finance abuse, and winner-take-all systems persist. The answer is simple: while many politicians have good intentions, the system’s incentives and constraints push them away from meaningful reform.

The political industry thrives when the game continues. Fixing systemic flaws would disrupt the very engine that sustains both parties' power. Upton Sinclair—best known for The Jungle, his exposé of the meatpacking industry—once noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” The two-party system is not broken by accident; it is preserved by institutional incentives and constraints. Asking party leadership to reform the political system would be like asking the fox to make it more difficult to get into the henhouse.

When the Game Doesn’t Serve the People

The consequences are clear: gridlock, public frustration, growing distrust, and a political class more focused on optics than outcomes. The majority of Americans identify as independents or moderates, yet extreme factions empowered by party structures often drown out their voices.

The public plays a finite game—hoping their candidate will win and bring change. But real change will not happen until we recognize the infinite game behind the scenes.

A Way Forward: Change the Rules, Change the Game

If we want better outcomes, we must realign the system’s incentives and constraints. That means:

• Reforming or eliminating the current primary system

• Implementing open primaries and ranked-choice voting

• Establishing fair, nonpartisan redistricting processes

• Creating real ballot access for third-party or independent candidates

These changes will not be easy, but they target the root of the problem: the rules of the infinite game. Only by rewriting those rules can we turn political leadership back toward serving the people, not the party.

Taking the Red Pill

American students are taught civics through the lens of constitutional ideals and representative democracy. But the system they enter no longer reflects that intent. It prioritizes institutional preservation over public service and fundraising over constitutional principles—creating a stark disconnect between what we teach and how politics actually operates. This gap is the root cause of increasing frustration and mistrust.

In the classic film The Matrix, the hero Neo is offered a choice: take the blue pill and remain in the comfortable illusion, or take the red pill and awaken to reality. He chooses the red pill—and everything changes. This moment is a powerful metaphor for where we are in American politics. Most voters are stuck in a political simulation—believing each election will bring meaningful change, while the system behind the scenes has been manipulated to perpetuate the status quo. Recognizing that our two major parties are playing an infinite game is the liberating red pill. It means admitting that the problem is not caused by our political opponents or the latest scandal—it’s the structure itself.

Knowledge is power. By understanding the game behind the game, we can begin to reclaim our democracy, realign our incentives, and build a government that truly serves its citizens—not its parties.

Share this with a friend. Wake someone up. The clock is ticking, and the future of our republic depends on how many of us choose to see clearly—before it is too late.

Conclusion

The first step to fixing our democracy is seeing it clearly. The two-party duopoly is not just competing—it is tacitly colluding to preserve an infinite game that benefits them, not us. Voters, donors, and reformers must stop playing along. It is time to change the rules and end the illusion.

Suggested Reading

• Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games. Ballantine Books, 1986.

• Porter, Michael E., and Katherine M. Gehl. “Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America.” Harvard Business School Report, 2017.

• Hulett, Jeff. Unhack the Vote: How the Vote Got Hacked and What We Can Do About It. The Curiosity Vine, 2024.

• Hulett, Jeff. The Big Pivot: How a Well-Intended Political Rule Change Weakened Our Vote. The Curiosity Vine, 2021.

• Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. University of Michigan Press, 1962.

• Sinclair, Upton. I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked. University of California Press, 1994.

• Rauch, Jonathan, and Raymond J. La Raja. “Too Much Democracy Is Bad for Democracy.” Brookings Institution, July 2020.

• Masket, Seth E. The Inevitable Party: Why Attempts to Kill the Party System Fail and How They Weaken Democracy. Oxford University Press, 2016.

• Levin, Yuval. American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. Basic Books, 2024.