When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016, he unleashed unbridled anger at campaign rallies. In the Republican primary debate, he won the nomination by adopting this style.

He seemed happy to adopt the 'Kruddha Sankaha' persona. He deeply believed that the country was being run by incompetent people. 

(The Week, January 15, 2016). That's why Trump thinks it's manly to make a self-proclaimed different kind of alliance. One after another, he has groomed himself to be a somewhat unexpected prospect of being a different kind of president. “There's a certain unpredictability about Trump, which is great (Vox.com, September 4, 2015).” Speaking on foreign policy for the first time, Trump argued that Obama-era policies had ruined the country, saying, “We've got to be more unprepossessing as a nation” (Foreign Policy, April). 27, 2016). Trump followed Grover Cleveland's record and succeeded in transforming the Republican Party into a maverick party. are. 

Trump's approach as president bears striking similarities to Richard Nixon's 1968 election campaign. Both leaders have presented their image as 'outsiders' and 'supporters of peace'. Which Trump, while taking the oath for the second time, has again declared himself a symbol of unity and a pacifist. Both Nixon and Trump had and continue to have contentious relationships with the media. They have demonstrated equality in ways that have confounded critics by taking a unique approach to foreign affairs, contrary to traditional diplomatic rules. Coincidentally, both of these leaders were impeached and there was great political tension and controversy in their administration. Thus, parallels between Trump's first presidency and Nixon's Vietnam War era have evoked a renaissance of American politics. At the beginning of Trump's second term, the Gaza cease-fire and the standoff in Ukraine have made that context clear. 

Nixon wanted the North Vietnamese to surrender to end it by showing that they were willing to do anything. They did not hesitate to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. But the Vietnamese patriots set a record of world-renowned heroism that put a permanent halt to the Nixon trend. This tendency focuses on making the leader's behavior appear uncertain and unpredictable, giving the opponent the impression that any option is possible. This style also includes the possibility of excessive force use. 

In 2017, Trump told his chief negotiator about re-evaluating the terms of the US-South Korea free trade agreement: 'Trump is so crazy that he can pull out of the deal at any time.' Swann, Axios, October 1, 2017). However, Trump is thought to behave eccentrically in order to appear opaque for really perfectly rational reasons. CNN's Jim Ciuto has written a book titled 'The Madman Theory (2018)' about Trump's foreign policy. In the book "Fear" by the famous journalist Bob Woodward, White House Chief Secretary Rob Porter mentioned that he had to spend a third of his time trying to stop Trump's impulsive ideas.

Machiavelli said in 1517 with a thorough study of human nature in 'Discourses on Livy', 'Sometimes it may be a very wise thing to imitate whims.' President Trump is complying with Machiavelli's policy. Nixon used to say,    Make your opponents so crazy and fake that they think you are capable of doing anything, even launching an intercontinental ballistic missile. Trump has taken the 'Madman' strategy to a new level by delivering similar messages to North Korea and Iran (William Flake, The Week: 2018). In the 1970s, Nixon had Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reassure the leaders of enemy communist nations that he feared he could do anything. Kissinger, a practitioner of 'real-politic', saw the possibility of American victory in such a 'madman theory' and easily implemented it. Nixon was no stranger, but his drunken stupor during the height of the Watergate scandal made it easier for Kissinger and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger to establish a way to monitor the president's control of the nuclear codes. (Nina Khrushchev: Project Syndicate, September 29, 2017). Nikita Khrushchev's granddaughter, Nina, has interestingly mentioned that Nixon's purpose was to create fear and pressure on his opponents by promoting his alleged erratic nature.

During the early days of the Cold War, strategists Ellsberg and Thomas Scherling wrote about the potential reputation-building qualities of whimsy in pressure situations. In a book called 'The Strategy of Conflict', Scherling says – 'In a conflict situation, being completely and demonstrably rational is not a universal advantage.' have exceeded the scope of long-term US policies by introducing more demands. Trump has described himself as an "eccentric man" by threatening severe consequences if other countries don't give him what he wants (Samuel & Caitlin, The Washington Quarterly, July 2, 2020). In this situation, after taking office for the second time, he issued 100 executive orders, soft towards China, which was contracted as the main enemy in the election campaign, and aggressive towards Canada and Mexico, who are his own partners, not only revealed his unexpectedness but also his cowardice.  The gamble of

fads doesn't work in the long run. Nixon's whimsical gamble did not yield any compromises. Rosen McMahon, a professor at Penn State University, concludes that the whimsical approach "could help business pressures in times of crisis...when the reputation of whimsy is minimal."

Trump's diplomatic pressures during his first term were often considered futile. The track record of economic pressure was not exceptional. Trump's biggest foreign policy success—the Abraham Accords—is an offer of inducements, but it was not a cynically threatened strategy. In his second term, this matter is sure to flare up again. Added to that are Syria, Gaza and Lebanon. Ukraine is as famous as Trump's tariff, which has become a beloved term. 

Trump's whimsical style appears to be more effective against America's allies than against those it considers enemies. After threatening to pull out of long-term alliances and trade agreements, European countries began to show their loyalty to NATO, at least publicly. Playing a whimsical gamble with Iran, he authorized drone airstrikes to kill Qassem Soleimani. But before doing so, he changed his decision at the last moment not to respond to the Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia. Trump considers himself a calm and rational man compared to his security adviser, John Bolton. 

Most foreign leaders are now well aware of the gamble Trump is trying to play. Just as Nixon's whimsy gambit failed, it was not difficult to understand why Nixon was acting whimsical because he had known Soviet officials for decades in public office. Just as Nixon often found it easy to overstate his intentions, Trump's past track record has made him more predictable among foreign leaders. His threats over the Panama Canal or his land dealing style towards Greenland or his irony of making Canada a US state have not been taken seriously by world leaders.

Successful diplomatic pressure requires two types of credible commitment. 

First, the target country must be able to convince the rival or counterpart leader that will carry out his threats. Second, the target country must believe that the threatening leader will stop his pressure once an agreement is reached. A display of whimsy may lead to a greater likelihood of the first type of commitment. But makes the second type of commitment less likely. As diplomats have concluded in various contexts, "many fanatics" are unlikely to benefit from their false reputation.

'Trump is a man of few moves. Trump is not often playing three-dimensional chess, as his political aides said during his first term—“Most of the time he just eats pies (BuzzfeedNews, June 1, 2018).” Trump may be eager to apply the Madman Theory this time around. But the rest of the world won't let him succeed easily. But Trump's improbable journey to a second term amid criminal convictions may have made him overconfident in taking even more risks. One Trump adviser said 'Look, he's survived two assassination attempts, how many times he's been indicted—he's really feeling accomplished and anonymously emboldened at this moment (Politico, November 11, 2024). '

But in Trump's second term, he is accompanied by Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and a dozen more  has stood. Trump, Musk and their assistants think that the whole world can be fixed by threatening them. Trump is now surrounded by a wealthy self-interest group led by Elon Musk. The billionaire owners of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times surrendered during the election. ABC News (owned by Disney) has settled a defamation lawsuit against it by paying $15 million to Trump's "Future Presidents Foundation and Museum". Mark Zuckerberg has re-centered meta platforms around 'free expression' and has not only pitted his company against diversity, equality and inclusion called 'DEI' but has made Trump a doctrine. Amazon has donated $40 million for a documentary about Melania Trump. Tim 

Cook, Sundar Pichai and several other top executives are racing to dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. It's different from Trump's first term in 2017 in many ways. Billionaires see the rules changed and are forced to believe they are better off following those rules. "Everybody wants to be my friend," Trump wrote on "Truth Social" after dinner with Jeff Bezos. He's not wrong. Elon Musk has continuously stormed Britain's Downing Street, a perennial partner, and has even reached into the parliament in Berlin. Georgia Maloney makes a rare visit from Mar-a-Lago to the Rotunda Hall and fills the title of 'Fantastic Lady'. Democracy does not die by itself in darkness. It is weakened by bargaining. A lot of practical transactions are taking place openly between those who have power and those who want it or are afraid of power. Questioning why money and the media are forced to accept a peaceful authoritarian regime costs them dearly otherwise. 

Trump gave daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner key roles in both domestic and foreign affairs during his first term.  At the time of

, Charles Kushner has been appointed ambassador to France, while Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, Massad Boulos, has been made Middle East adviser. With such appointments and responsibilities, between the Gaza massacre and the geopolitical tension, the fear that the geography itself will change terribly in the next decade has spread. This situation is the most critical global political scenario since the Cold War. 

The academic basis of the 'eccentric man theory' in modern American politics seems to be based on the ideas of Harvard University scholars: Thomas Schelling, Daniel Ellsberg and Henry Kissinger.