Family Stories: Tasco Delano Thomas

Tasco Delano "TD" Thomas was pretty freaking amazing. Born in St. Mary's County, MD to a black father and Native American mother, he was orphaned at a young age. He later made the long, arduous trip to Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth (aka Manassas Institute, it was the closest school for colored students) for school where he was Treasurer of his class and was described by his track coach as an "iron man" who could run three middle-distance races in a single day at the Penn Relays and win them all. 

Manassas Institute Track Team; TD is standing 2nd from the left

That's all impressive, but he only became more so in the years to come.

After saving his money, TD and his wife Frances (a rather remarkable woman in her own right) decided to buy a business property in which to set up shop. The location on Georgia Avenue in DC was subject to covenants that restricted owners from selling to negroes, but TD found a fair-skinned black man to work as an intermediary. He negotiated the contract, and got the sellers to sign. When TD showed up for settlement, the owner tried to back out, but the owner's lawyer advised him to go through with it because they had already signed the contract. Backing out then would have gotten them into hot water, so TD was able to buy the building and became the first black business owner on Georgia Ave.

Tasco Delano Thomas (foreground) in his 2nd shop on Georgia Ave.

So, how did TD pay for the building? With cold, hard cash. As a youth, TD had put $7 in a bank account, but when he went back to the bank in 1930 to collect his money, the bank told him that fees had eaten away his money, so none of it was left. Dismayed, TD never put money in a bank again. Rather, he kept his money in a steamer trunk in their home. Time to buy a barber shop? Grab money out of the steamer trunk. Pay for his son to attend Yale? Steamer trunk. Help his son and daughter-in-law with cash at settlement for their first home? Bring a paper bag full of cash from the steamer trunk. 

That an orphan from Southern Maryland was able to own his own business and use income from that business to send his kids to college and help with down payments is remarkable. That his son became Secretary of the FTC and his daughter a school Principal, and his grandchildren became educators, social workers, public servants, and business people with a slew of impressive degrees, devotion to public service, and amazing spouses is quite the testament to the example he set (and the amazing woman he married).

Foolish Adults in the Room: The Prisoner's Dilemma and Politics

I often hear and read democrats proclaiming some version of "when they go low, we have to go high" or "we have to be the adults in the room" or some similar sentiment. The idea is that the divisiveness in the country can be healed if we reach across the aisle and be better then the Republicans have been.

When I was a freshman in college, I took an amazing course called Aggression, War, and Civilization, and lessons from that course still resonate. One important lesson came from a lab in which a partner and I performed 100 iterations of the Prisoner's Dilemma. If you don't know about the Prisoner's Dilemma, read about it here.

So, from a game theoretical perspective, the correct long-term strategy is for both sides to play nice. If we both stay loyal to each other, that provides the best long-term outcomes because it is a stable state.

But here's the thing, if one partner turns on the other and never is met with a fight, then the new stable state is one in which one partner prospers while (and because) the other suffers. 

This second state is where I think the US political system is right now. 

Harvard Political Review's Gordon Kamer laid it out nicely in Hyper-Partisanship and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. As he says:

Bipartisanship is thus incorrect for any single politician to pursue without genuine concessions from other actors. Trust between politicians has eroded so that no one will logically cooperate in the prisoner’s dilemma, and political discourse worsens.

Here's one example: Obama was a nice guy who reached across the aisle. He was not a radical. Still, Mitch McConnell denied him the Supreme Court appointment he should have been able to make. The GOP has no reason to temper their odious behavior because they know the Dems will respond with bipartisanship and moderation. Our stable state involves the GOP's scorched earth approach being followed by Dems being kind, bipartisan moderates. 

Maybe the Dems need to wield control and really push through some bold ideas. We've tried it the moderate Dem and/or GOP way for a long, long time, and the result is growing wealth gap, fewer people getting proper healthcare, and a host of other issues summarized nicely in this NY Times article The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why.  

Dems cooperating while the GOP continues to play their nasty games is a long-term strategy that has been predictably bad for political discourse and the US.