Let’s say you were a power hitter during baseball’s steroids era. You may have objected to steroids on moral and health grounds. But many of your competitors were using them, so you faced enormous pressure to use them too.

Let’s say you are a student at a good high school. You may want to have a normal adolescence. But you are surrounded by all these junior workaholics who have been preparing for the college admissions racket since they were 6. You find you can’t unilaterally withdraw from the rat race and still get into the college of your choice. So you also face enormous pressure to behave in a way you detest.

You might call these situations brutality cascades. In certain sorts of competitions, the most brutal player gets to set the rules. Everybody else feels pressure to imitate, whether they want to or not.

The political world is rife with brutality cascades. Let’s say you are a normal person who gets into Congress. You’d rather not spend all your time fund-raising. You’d like to be civil to your opponents and maybe even work out some compromises.