"We have a president, Donald Trump, who disregards the norms of presidential behavior and treats those institutions of government that are designed to check presidential power, as inconvenient nuisances. Trump exhibits little knowledge of policy and has unpredictable emotional responses to criticism and crisis. Daniel Drezner contends that Donald Trump exhibits the behavior of a toddler and our response reveals the weaknesses of our ability to restrain...

Nixon tried it first. Hoping to make communist bloc countries uneasy and thus unstable, Nixon let them think he was just crazy enough to nuke them. He called this "the madman theory." Trump has employed his own "madman theory," sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. He praises Kim Jong-un, admires and flatters Vladimir Putin, but attacks US institutions and officials, ignores his own advisors, and turns his back on US allies. Trump's supporters...

It is comforting to see President Donald Trump as a crazy man, a one-off, an exception -- not a reflection on us or our democracy. But in ways I never anticipated, his rise was absolutely predictable and a mirror on our soul. What does it say about us, that we elected someone so manifestly unfit and unprepared to determine mankind's future? Trump is a symptom of a world in distress, not its sole cause. Blaming him for all our troubles misses the deeper,...