Trump’s Madman Act Isn’t Just for Foreign Policy Anymore

Photo: Nathan Howard/Reuters

One of Donald Trump’s most noteworthy characteristics as a president has been his robust deployment of the so-called madman theory in foreign policy. First developed during the Nixon administration, the idea is to convince potential adversaries that the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger has zero compunctions about pressing it — or about taking other dangerous steps that rational actors would never seriously consider. The possibility that the most powerful...