Going All In | Ep. #80

Summary: In Ep. 80, When Jeb Bush launched his campaign for President, in June, most of the attention paid to his political branding focussed on his folksy logo, which featured his first name alone, in Target red, followed by an exclamation point. But, at the same time, Bush also débuted his campaign’s hashtag, #AllInForJeb, which serves as his digital message, rallying cry, and women’s vintage-T-shirt slogan. With it, Bush, the former governor of Florida, was asking his volunteers to go “all in” in support of his candidacy, and suggesting by association that, in contrast with his previous flirtations with running for the White House, he would be fully engaged with the task this time, too. In American usage, the phrase “all in” began as a colloquial expression meaning to be in a bad spot—exhausted, worn out, and spent. In the game of poker, it refers to the moment when a player—whether out of bravado, recklessness, or desperation—bets all of his or her chips on a single hand. Thanks to the Texas Hold’em craze of the nineteen-nineties and two thousands, and the public’s appetite for new forms of dramatic hyperbole, the poker version of the phrase crossed over to general use and, along the way, became denuded to the point of near meaninglessness. Whereas “all in” once referred to a scenario in which someone either wins a hand or loses everything in a flash, now it means that a person is simply generally enthusiastic or fully committed. It’s everywhere these days—business jargon, marketing catch phrases, sports mantras, and the idioms of religion and self-help. The all-in moment in poker is a thrilling win-or-lose-everything crisis of dramatic clarity: you’ve wagered all you’ve got, giving your fate over to the cards, and you can’t go back out again. Going all in is often a spectacularly bad idea. But in life, it seems, it is all good—the only way to live boldly is to be all in on many different things at once. “All in” has become especially popular in the language of politics. It’s the title of Chris Hayes’s talk show on MSNBC and Paula Broadwell’s ill-fated biography of David Petraeus, the former director of the C.I.A. The phrase gets tossed into headlines every time a politician decides to try to do something. In just the past year, President Obama has been said to have been all in on free trade, climate change, and criminal-justice reform. In April, the Washington Post reported that Hillary Clinton had gone “all-in on gay marriage.” In May, Clinton was, according to MSNBC, going “all in on immigration reform.” In July, Fusion said that Bernie Sanders was going “all-in on the $15 minimum wage.” A few weeks ago, Salon argued that Donald Trump had gone “all in on right’s latest insanity.” More recently, NBC News announced that Jeb Bush, true to his hashtag promise, was planning to go “all in against Donald Trump.” In Iowa, Bush was asked by a reporter if he really was all in on the caucuses there. Yes, Bush said, he was all in. None of these statements, of course, are true. Modern politicians have not, all of a sudden and all at once, become incredible risk-takers—betting their entire legacies or campaigns on a particular issue or strategy. It’s difficult to think of any moment in history when a politician has actually gone all in. (Though it’s probably safe to say that Abraham Lincoln went all in on restoring the Union.) If Hillary Clinton’s policy on immigration or Bernie Sanders’s support of a higher minimum wage turn out to be unpopular with voters, they won’t suddenly have to quit the race. Jeb Bush won’t drop out if he loses in Iowa. And the stakes of the election for Bush are several notches below his campaign’s rhetoric. If he loses, he’ll go back to sitting on corporate boards and being the son of one President and the brother of another. Many of poker’s words and phrases are tinged with a kind of roguish romance and drama that we hope may rub off on the more mundane activities of normal life—upping the ante.