How do we figure out who the baddies are? Usually, we pay attention to whether they’re saying the right things. Are they saying things that make us nod and applaud? Or are they saying things that make us cringe and facepalm? We infer people’s character traits by the words they use and in what order they use them. When everyone uses this shortcut to identify the baddies, the result is what Robin Hanson calls “righttalkism,” the view that all it takes to improve the world is to change how people talk. The logic is straightforward:
Bad things are caused by bad people.
Good things are caused by good people.
Bad people are bad because they talk the wrong way.
Good people are good because they talk the right way.
Therefore, if everybody talks the right way and nobody talks the wrong way, then everything will be good.
This is essentially what modern discourse is all about.
David Pinsof argues that society runs on incentives, not character. Bad behavior comes from bad incentives, not bad people. He calls the opposite view “likability determinism,” the tendency to explain events by sorting actors into heroes and villains. Most political commentary, he says, is really about whether people use the right words, what Robin Hanson calls “righttalkism.” If everyone just talked correctly, the thinking goes, the world would improve. Pinsof finds this naive.
Applying his lens to Trump and the Iran war clarifies what looks like incoherence. Trump says the campaign is “very complete.” His Pentagon says they have “only just begun to fight.” Experts call this chaos. Pinsof’s framework calls it multiplex signaling, a president optimizing for several audiences at once, each pulling the message in a different direction.
Markets want reassurance. Allies want resolve. The base wants strength without another Iraq. The adversary needs to feel fear and uncertainty. No single narrative satisfies all of them. So the message shifts depending on who is listening.
Foreign policy experts criticize this as reckless, but Pinsof’s framework applies to them too. Think tanks, elite media, and former officials operate inside a prestige economy that rewards sounding sober and institutionally responsible. The highest-status move in that world is to warn about escalation and complexity. The expert critique of Trump’s rhetoric is not pure analysis. It is also a performance within its own incentive structure.
Trump’s volatility may also serve a deterrent function. Traditional deterrence assumes credibility comes from predictability. The madman model inverts this. If Tehran cannot calculate the ceiling of American escalation, the range of possible outcomes expands and the perceived risk rises without requiring further strikes.
The civilian-military split inside the U.S. government reflects the same logic. The Pentagon needs to maintain operational momentum and allied credibility, so it emphasizes ongoing campaigns. Trump needs domestic political legitimacy, so he emphasizes progress and nearing victory. Both statements might reflect the incentive structure of the speaker rather than confusion about facts.
Time horizons matter here. Military planners think in months or years. Foreign policy institutions think in decades. Presidents think in election cycles. Trump’s rhetoric collapses these timelines for domestic consumption. Rapid victory, imminent deals, nearly nothing left to target. All of it keeps the perceived cost of the war low enough to sustain public support.
Seven American combat deaths as of March 2026 represent the hardest constraint of all. Once casualties rise, or gas prices bite, the domestic incentive coalition shifts and the rhetoric will follow immediately. Not because anyone discovered new truths. Because the incentives changed.
