The Chessboard of This Election: Don't Watch the Kings, Watch the Board

If you want to know how the result of this election will affect the next years in America, pay attention to what it means for the positions of all the other pieces on the board.

The question that everyone’s focused on this week is who will win this election. Everyone wants to know who will wear the crown. They believe the future of America depends on it.

However, as anyone who has played a little chess knows, the king might be the most important piece, but it’s not the most significant piece on the board. The king is a weak piece. It’s constantly pressured and manipulated by all the other pieces. It’s not a piece that acts. It’s a piece that’s acted upon.

If you want to know how the result of this election will affect the next years in America, pay attention to what it means for the positions of all the other pieces on the board.

THE CHESS PIECES OF POLITICS

There are five classes of political chess pieces on the board:

• Kings: The kings are our potential presidents. They’re the titular leaders of their parties. In reality, they’re often more symbols and figureheads maneuvered and pressured by all the other pieces at play.

• Bishops: Bishops are the players competing to reshape a party’s direction and ideas. Some are wealthy donors like Peter Thiel or Alex Soros, operating through backchannels and wallets. Some are idea people with audiences and the ears of the powerful like Tucker Carlson or Ezra Klein. Some are big-time officials who move in and out of government, people you’ve never heard of whose names make people in the know in Washington quake.

• Rooks and Knights: Rooks are the party’s officeholders and operatives. They’re the party officials, Members of Congress, professional staff, and state senators. Knights are the heavy-hitter activists. They’re the heads of non-profits and leaders of aligned organizations. Rooks and Knights make things happen on the ground. While bishops are architects of the party’s strategy and agenda, rooks and knights are the colonels, captains, and lieutenants who execute it—with self-interested motives for their careers or parochial agendas.

• Pawns: Pawns are the local activists, local officials, small organizations, and voters who are the line troops of the party. They show up to rallies, donate forty dollars, put up lawn signs, and vote. They’re MAGA, anti-capitalists, identity activists, college students, protestors, and party regulars. They’re the people we call Red and Blue America.

• Queens: The most important pieces are queens. Queens are national figures competing to lead the party’s future. They’re not just rooks looking to advance careers. They aren’t even always politicians or candidates themselves, although often are. They’re the major figures looking to control the party to force it and America into new directions.

Looking at the board, Republicans have strong bishops and queens, while Democrats have strong rooks, knights, and pawns. Which party wins this election affects how these pieces are arranged.

The Republicans’ Pieces

Republicans have strong bishops in a new right looking to institutionalize Trumpism into an ideology and agenda. Trump destroyed the old Republican party, leaving an open window to build a new one. This attracted thinkers and operators both in the open and in the shadows fighting for the opportunity to redefine the Republican Party. This includes everyone from Peter Thiel and Elon Musk to The Heritage Foundation and American Compass.

They also now have a strong queen in JD Vance. As the vice-presidential candidate, Vance has quickly consolidated a spot previously in competition between the likes of Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio. What makes Vance unique is he isn’t just another rook looking to rise in office. He’s intellectual entrepreneur looking to recreate the party in his image.

While the Republicans’ bishops and queens are strong, their rooks and knights and pawns are weak. The Republicans lack a popular bench, since their bench was mostly decimated and humbled under Donald Trump. The party no longer has a strong machine or activist groups or independent think tanks for the same reason. The party and conservative movement was mostly put into Trump’s service, and thus destroyed as independent forces. The Republican MAGA base is energized, but it’s not organized. All these pieces are now bound to Trump the man, so what happens when he leaves the scene which is right around the corner?

The Democrats’ Pieces

Democrats on the other hand have exceptionally strong rooks and knights and pawns. The Democrats have an efficient political machine and bench of ambitious office holders waiting to climb the ladder. They have an intense array of aligned activist organizations and think tanks. They have aligned leaders across institutions like universities, media and corporations. Democrats also have strong pawns. The ground troops of Blue America increasingly are America’s educated professionals, a powerful and organized groups of pawns. They’re well-organized, politically focused, powerful, cooperative with party leaders, and well-placed to execute the party’s goals.

Where Democrats are weak is bishops and queens. Because the Democratic Party is now fueled by the professional class, the party is intellectually complacent. When the people who staff and support your party are the people who are doing well and run things across society, there’s not much enthusiasm for major change. The party has a few strong bishops like the group around Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias, some wealthy donors and operatives, and some thinkers who drifted from the former center right. However, most of the places you would expect to find Democratic bishops you just find knights and rooks.

Most important, the Democrats no longer have any obvious queens. Some suggest Pete Buttigieg might emerge as a queen to mirror Vance. Others have looked to AOC (who once aspired to be a queen, but increasingly looks like a rook). At the moment, however, the Democrats must go without.

HOW THIS ELECTION MOVES THE PIECES

How will this election rearrange the pieces on the board?

Winning the White House strengthens bishops and queens. Losing the White House strengthens rooks and knights and pawns.

When a party wins the White House, its bishops and queens have an opportunity to gain control of levers of power to execute their plans. While they must still be mindful of powerful rooks and knights and pawns, as long as the king puts them in the game they have four years to run an administration before the next election shifts power out of their hands. In that time, they can consolidate power and permanently rearrange the state of play.

Losing the White House, on the other hand, means no one occupying the high seat of power to enforce conformity and discipline. That means all the rooks and knights and pawns are free to scramble for their own interests without anyone forcing them into line. The bishops and queens who would like to restrain or control them have no leverage and must instead resort to persuasion, which is difficult and in some cases nearly impossible given the number of rooks and knights and pawns and their power, and the goals of bishops and queens.

What does this means for the election?

What if Republicans win and Democrats lose?

If the Republicans win, their bishops of the new right and queen in JD Vance will use the opportunity to consolidate Trumpism. They’ll use their positions throughout official Washington to build a set of ideas and policies they hope can unite this new Republican Party and institutionalize its coalition to survive a world post-Trump. They’ll do this of course in a way that seeks to consolidate their own priorities. The Republican rooks and pawns will loyally fall into line with however the bishops and queens reshape the party.

At the same time, the out-of-office Democrats will now be at the mercy of their rooks and knights and pawns. Those pieces will clamor once more for a strong Resistance. They won’t want to develop new ideas or change in any way. In fact, as the people mostly running things and happy with the direction of America, change to them seems dangerous and disruptive. They’ll want to preserve things as they are while further entrenching their priorities and ideas. The party’s bishops and pawns will have no choice but to go along, while murmuring that eventually the party will need to adjust and be more moderate and efficient to solve problems and win back power.

What if Democrats win and Republicans lose?

If the Democrats win, on the other hand, their bishops will be in a position to push ideas and change. While they’ll have some ability to do this from the White House, they’ll face the same problem—the Democrats’ rooks and knights and pawns will want to continue the status quo. Given the weakness of these bishops and the lack of queens, even modest reforms will have little chance against the power of the rooks and knights and pawns. Expect a status quo presidency that continues on the same course while entrenching the interests and power of the people who run things in America.

The Republicans, now out of the White House, will be at the mercy of their rooks and knights and pawns, but now without Trump to direct them. This means factions and interests will push and pull the party in a multitude of chaotic directions. Ambitious rooks will seek to build audiences and careers. Ambitious knights will try to make the party take big stands. Ambitious pawns will do some outrageous things. The bishops and queens will try to institutionalize this tumult into a new movement around ideas, but without the power of the White House will find it difficult. I would expect chaos if not the utter splintering of the party as an entity.

What does this means for America?

A Republican win is high variance for policy and ideas, but low variance politically. It would open America to potentially major shifts in direction. Republican bishops will be executing potentially major plans, while Democrats grassroots will double down on their old ideas while intensely rallying as the Resistance. What emerges could go in a multitude of directions, some good and some very much not. Politically, however, it means consolidating the emerging new party coalitions permanently into the future.

A Democratic win, on the other hand, is the opposite—high variance politically but low variance in policy and ideas. Politically, the Republican coalition could shatter as it gets pulled into tumultuous directions without a leader or core unifying agenda in place, while Democrats mostly seek to complacently double down on their party’s status quo while the public gets frustrated at their lack of action. Politically, that could blow up our existing party structure and throw America into a chaotic era as groups and factions push and pull to build a future from the rubble. As for ideas, it will be impossible in the political turmoil to consolidate any new ideas or push America into any new direction for a while until new alliances emerge.

Which is better for the country? Either path is going to be a ride. Which is better depends on what you hope to achieve. Do your think these new coalitions consolidating is good, or do you wish for some other option? Do you think the new ideas that will come out of this moment are good, or do you think they’re destructive? Once the chaos starts, things could go a lot of different directions before a new realignment settles into place.

Personally, I’m still hoping that out of this chaos a group of new bishops and queens comes together around a better path, creating the infrastructure to support their own rooks and knights, and building a following attracting the enthusiasms of a large grassroot of pawns. At the moment, however, there isn’t much appetite for this sort of thing. I expect that sometime soon, as this moment plays out, that will change.

For now, I advise you to not to just to keep your eyes on the kings. Watch the board.

What do you think about the political chessboard? Join the conversation in the comments.