How is the presidential race like “a knife fight in a phone booth”?

On September 2, 2024, when describing the stakes of this evening’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, Steven Shepard of Politico labeled the race “the equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth.”[i] 

I’m a big fan of the power of metaphor and analogy in persuasive writing, given their abilities to both readily convey complex information in simpler terms and improve concision.  But this particular comparison doesn’t work for me.  The characteristics of a knife fight in a phone booth are (1) two people in a very small space, (2) mortal danger, and (3) a short duration.  Harris and Trump are not, by any stretch of the imagination, in a confined space together.  While they are competing for the office of president, they are not seeking to physically harm or kill one another in doing so.  And while the timeline for this particular match-up is brief in comparison to prior presidential races given Harris’s late entry, it has still been (and will be) a monthslong endeavor.  So how, exactly, is it like a knife fight in a phone booth?

This is not the first time this metaphor has been used in reference to politics.  It is frequently used to describe the political landscape in San Francisco.[ii]  And it was used by Senator Mitch McConnell to describe congressional races in 2016.[iii]

But this phrase has also been used to describe combat in the Iraq War,[iv] dealing with turbulence when learning to fly an airplane,[v] the speed of a bicycle,[vi] competitive strategy in athletics,[vii] competition for real estate,[viii] the setup and play of various board games,[ix] and paralympic wheelchair fencing.[x]

“Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” is also the title of multiple songs by various artists,[xi] a watercolor painting,[xii] an actual board game,[xiii] and even an IPA craft beer (which was also sold in a pineapple version).[xiv]

It is hard to see a common thread.  I suspect the original meaning had more to do with speed than competition.  According to one website, the full phrase comes from the country expression, “faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.”[xv]  This makes a lot of sense; it’s not difficult to imagine that a knife fight in a phone booth would be over quickly.  But that doesn’t really apply to presidential races, which can feel rather long to the average American.

Another variation of the phrase is used to describe a boxing style—“fighting in a phone booth,” where the boxers stay huddled together without using the entire ring.[xvi]  (This version of the phrase has become an actual Russian sport where two people literally box each other inside the confines of a phone booth.)[xvii]  This knifeless version could figuratively apply to the current presidential race, where the real fight seems confined to a handful of swing states, rather than the country as a whole.  But then why the addition of knives?

I suspect the most likely explanation is that the evolution of language has simply morphed this metaphor into one of limited utility.  It makes sense when describing certain board games characterized by “slim mechanics,” “[p]unishing to even minor mistakes,” “[c]laustrophobic,” and “[o]ver in a flash.”[xviii] And it is an apt comparison to paralympic wheelchair fencing, where the competitors’ wheelchairs are locked on a fixed track so that the competitors’ blades are always within striking distance of one another, taking the footwork element out of the sport.[xix] But I struggle to see the connection to a political race.

Analogies and metaphors work by employing three cognitive science processes:  (1) retrieval (finding something known), (2) mapping (identifying similarities between the known and unknown), and (3) transfer (using knowledge about the known to learn or infer something about the unknown).[xx]  Therefore, analogies work best when they (1) compare the current situation with another situation that is familiar, (2) have some emotional resonance, and (3) are free of unintended associations.[xxi]  And maybe this is where the knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth metaphor breaks down for me.  Knife fights of any kind carry no emotional resonance, and using the phrase in reference to politics seems to encourage political violence, which, for most Americans, is a negative association.  And, if I’m being honest, the visual image of Harris and Trump in a literal knife fight in a phone booth is absurd and fails to convey what I believe was the intended meaning—that Harris and Trump are locked in a high-stakes competition with exceptionally close odds for both candidates. 

The moral of this story is this:  analogies and metaphors are excellent communication tools when used well, but they can be off-putting when used incorrectly or when they contain unintended associations.

 

[i] Steven Shepard, Where the race between Trump and Harris stands on Labor Day, according to our polling expert, Politico (Sept. 2, 2024), available at: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/02/trump-harris-polls-2024-00176981 (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[ii] See, e.g., Clara Jeffery, Dianne Feinstein and the Knife Fight in the Phone Booth, Mother Jones (Sept. 29, 2023), available at: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/dianne-feinstein-dan-white-harvey-milk/ (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024); Jacob Ganz, A Knife Fight in a Phone Booth: The Saga of the San Francisco Mayor's Race, Davis Political Review (June 1, 2018), available at: https://www.davispoliticalreview.com/article/2018/06/01/a-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth-the-saga-of-the-san-francisco-mayors-race (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[iii] See https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4622795/sen-mcconnell-senate-races-knife-fight-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[iv] Eric Boehler, Knife fight in a phone booth, Salon (Mar. 29, 2003), available at: https://www.salon.com/2003/03/29/baghdad_7/ (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024); Elliott Ackerman, A Knife Fight in a Phone Booth, The Atlantic (Nov. 7, 2023), available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/al-qaeda-fallujah-hamas-gaza-parallels/675912/ (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[v] Knife Fight in a Phone Booth, Southern California Soaring Academy blog, available at: https://soaringacademy.org/news/knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[vi] Bull Moose Bicycles, Facebook (July 16, 2024), available at: https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=1069208224593423&id=100045127670672&_rdr (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[vii] Jonathan Byrd, It’s a Knife Fight in a Phone Booth, 10/20/Life Blog, available at: https://www.powerrackstrength.com/its-a-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth/ (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[viii] Marc Stiles, Builder says competition for Seattle-area homesites feels 'like a knife fight in a phone booth', Biz Journals (May 17, 2024), available at: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2024/05/17/homesite-competition-akin-knife-fight-phone-booth.html (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[ix] https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/192508/a-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[x] @paralympics, TikTok (Sept. 1, 2024), available at: https://www.tiktok.com/@paralympics/video/7409618665819147552 (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[xi] See, e.g., “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” by Glassmouth, “a chaotic hardcore/mathcore band from the depths of metropolitan Singapore” (https://www.glassmouthband.com/); “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” by Bleed the Sky, “a metalcore band that originally formed in 2002 in Orange County, California” (https://genius.com/Bleed-the-sky-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth-lyrics); and “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” by Knockout Kid, “an American pop punk band from Chicago, Illinois” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockout_Kid).

[xii] “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” by South African artist Victoria Verbaan, available at: https://victoriaverbaan.com/products/knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).  This watercolor image depicts a woman facing up to a sky full of fighter jets.

[xiii] “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” by Long Games, available at: https://www.pnparcade.com/products/knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[xiv] Knife Fight in a Phone Booth by Tattered Flag Brewery, Middletown, PA (https://untappd.com/b/tattered-flag-brewery-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth/2502698).  Incidentally, the image represented on this beer was a hops flower flying a fighter jet engaged in aerial combat.  This craft brewery closed permanently on October 1, 2023.

[xv] https://www.just-one-liners.com/faster-than-a-knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth/ (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[xvi] See, e.g., What do they mean when they say two boxers were fighting in a phone booth?, Quora, available at: https://www.quora.com/What-do-they-mean-when-they-say-two-boxers-were-fighting-in-a-phone-booth (last accessed Sept. 8, 2024).

[xvii] https://sidekickboxing.co.uk/what-is-phone-booth-boxing/

[xviii] See boardgamegeek.com, supra note ix.

[xix] See @paralympics, supra note x.

[xx] Jacob M. Carpenter, Persuading with Precedent: Understanding and Improving Analogies in Legal Argument, 44 Cap. U.L. Rev. 461, 465-66 (2016).

[xxi] Bruce Ching, Argument, Analogy, and Audience: Using Persuasive Comparisons While Avoiding Unintended Effects, 7 J. Ass'n Legal Writing Directors 311, 312 (2010).