Texas vs. Chicago: Is It Wrong To Play the Zero Sum Game?

“Chicago is messing with Texas.” A story recently broke that the city of Chicago took out an ad in a Texas newspaper to lure residents frustrated by the state’s latest conservative abortion and voting legislation. It sparked outrage among some in Texas and ignited a debate about whether one locality should look to benefit from the frustration of people living in another. A similar backlash against the idea of promoting a zero sum game has hit the CBS reality show The Activist, which pits various worthy cause-driven groups against one another to get lucrative funding deals.

As show host Julianne Hough notes, “trying to value one cause over another felt like the Oppression Olympics and totally missed and disrespected the many activists who have been killed, assaulted and faced various abuses fighting for their causes.” So will we see more of these types of efforts to pit one cause or region against another? Or will the backlash prevail? That’s a reality show worth watching.