- I'm applying the "madman throry"
- What's that?
- If you act like a madman, issue contradictory demands, become unpredictable and unpleasant, people just cave in, become compliant and then you can get whatever you want.
- Ah, okay. Have you tried just asking first?
- No. I haven't, you think I should try?
- Yes. So, what do you want?
...
...
...
- Acting like a madman whenever the fuck I want!

#MadmanTheory

In 1968, Nixon was trying to end the war in #Vietnam, but he found the North Vietnamese enemy intractable.

"At one point Nixon said to Kissinger, 'you ought to tell the North Vietnamese negotiators that Nixon's crazy and you don't know what he's going to do, so you better come to an agreement before things get really crazy."

#Trump by being unpredictable on the world's stage, is just doing the same.

"I may bomb them. I may not bomb them. No one knows what I am going to do.'

#MadmanTheory

#MadmanTheory may have worked in the first #Trump presidency. (Although it is rather debatable if it works at all. Ever.)

But by now everybody in the world knows that you can just buy this sucker, and that is the total opposite of "unpredictability".

.

Etre fou ou jouer la folie: Donald Trump épouse-t-il la « #MadmanTheory »?

#Trump n'est pas fou, dans le sens #validiste du terme. C'est juste un riche héritier imbécile, à l'ego surdimensionné, qui n'a jamais rien réussi en tant que businessman. Son seul succès vient uniquement de son rôle de faux chef d'entreprise dans son émission de télé-réalité. C'est juste un bonimenteur à l'instinct roué, mais totalement autocentré, ce qui le rend très manipulable.

https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/revues-de-presse/etre-fou-ou-jouer-la-folie-donald-trump-epouse-t-il-la-madman-theory

The madman theory

Nuclear theorist Thomas Schelling wrote in 1966 that a “paradox of deterrence is that it does not always help to be, or to be believed to be, fully rational, cool-headed, and in control of oneself”. Convincing your adversaries that you may act in an irrational way can keep them unbalanced and force them to make concessions they would not otherwise make, so the madman theory goes.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-s-happy-to-play-the-madman-to-restore-global-order-but-will-it-work-20250127-p5l7gw.html

#Trump
#MadmanTheory