Too much has been written about President Trump’s gut (both literally and metaphorically).
Trump’s gut instincts pulled U.S. troops out of Northern Syria, filled administrative positions, and, most recently, killed terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani. He eschews briefing papers or memos, and so his foreign and economic policies are consistent only so far as it aligns with his gut. With haphazard as the president’s modus operandi, his gut is a continual source of controversy — from how it affects his decisions to how it affects his health. However, gut-level decision-making deserves more respect than it gets.
In 2005, New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell released an extended defense of subconscious decision-making in his pop-science book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
It begins with the tale of an art collector who approached a museum in California to sell a kouros, a rare and sought-after statue. The museum brought in a geologist to test the veracity of the statue and found it authentic. Simultaneously, a slew of art critics expressed revulsion at what was to them its apparent illegitimacy. Despite any discernible justification, critic after critic declared it a fake. Extensive review vindicated the art critics, much to the geologist’s shame.
Basically, the critics’ gut feelings won out.
The book proceeds to cover a multitude of studies that confirm the point illustrated in the above anecdote: Our subconscious often makes decisions that our slower-acting reasoning only later confirms. In one such study, when presented with a rigged deck, gamblers showed signs of favoring a fair deck even before they could articulate why, just as art critics could perceive a counterfeit even before experts consolidated evidence. In the author’s own words, “Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”
Trump made a declaration that any American deaths from Iranian aggression would result in retaliation. Iran killed a U.S. contractor, rumors of Iranian attacks spread, and so Trump made a seemingly brash decision to act. His gut response sent missiles into Iran, and it was later confirmed that there would be no substantial retaliation. Later reasoning confirmed that his earlier gut decision was correct.
However, this research only partially vindicates Trump, as expertise is essential to subconscious decision-making. In Cultural Literacy, education professor E.D. Hirsch uses the nature of working memory, that we can only process four to seven bits of information at a time, to explain the nature of expertise.
This is the reason telephone numbers are written the way they are.
Individually, seven numbers are hard to hold in memory. However, when “chunked” into a set of three and a set of four, numbers that previously took up seven different memory slots now only take up two. Looked at another way, a human could quickly memorize only about seven letters, but if given a simple sentence, such as “the cat slept all afternoon,” they could memorize many more because those letters have been chunked into recognizable bits.
An expert, then, is someone who has “chunked” complex information.
Military experts are those who have chunked the minutiae of foreign policy and military strategies. Their snap decisions, perhaps necessitated by world events, involve more consideration, deliberation, and data than the average reader could muster in a month of thought. A snap decision in response to Iranian aggression could be more thoughtful than a congressional move after much debate. Conversely, Trump choosing to praise dictators such as Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin because of a gut feeling of camaraderie could ruin years of careful planning.
Ultimately, that Trump follows his gut is irrelevant. Research shows that subconscious and reasoned decision-making are two sides of the same coin. What’s more, sociologist Jonathan Haidt’s best-selling book The Righteous Mind shows that we all act with our gut even when we’d like to think that everything we do is well thought out.
Trump’s gut killed Soleimani, stood by Brett Kavanaugh, and bombed Syria after chemical attacks. His gut also led him to raise tariffs, pull out of Northern Syria, tweet incessantly, and praise dictators. In short, Trump’s decisions aren’t good or bad because he decided with his gut. They’re good or bad because of the results and consequences they cause.
Focusing too much on how Trump makes his decisions is to miss out on the far more fruitful and important conversation of what his decision actually is. And that’s what really matters.
Daniel Buck is head columnist for Lone Conservative.
