‘With Trump, it’s not madman theory – it’s madman practice’

‘With Trump, it’s not madman theory – it’s madman practice’

Is Trump’s erratic and unprecedented behaviour part of a ‘madman theory’? Madman theory (associated most, after Trump, with Ronald Reagan’s presidency) proposes that unpredictable behaviour can help disarm and confuse other governments or systems of power, reducing the threat of attack. Helen MacNamara and Cleo Watson saw the ‘mad man’ for themselves when the UK government scrambled to react to Trump’s false claim of electoral fraud after the 20…