Political Weirdos

There is some precedent for the general line of thought See Nixon's Madman Theory The key, though, is the Madman Theory is that the president is having an emotional reaction (but is otherwise rational) and will escalate a military conflict, thus, in theory, encouraging the other party to back down and seek peace. The line the Madman is crossing is escalation, a violation of norms, but ultimately something that will harm the other party and not the madman's country.

Scott Adams is proposing a Dumbass Theory, where the president is so much of a moron he will impose policy mutually destructive to both countries, likely moreso to the Dumbass's own country. Unlike the Madman, there are plenty of ways to deal with a Dumbass apart from caving to his demands. After all, he is a Dumbass, and can be manipulated by a more clever counter party (we all know the ease of manipulating Trump). The easiest of which is to let the Dumbass carry through with his threat and wait for him to back down once the pain felt better his own citizens becomes too much to bear politically. (See Brexit, though the UK ultimately didn't back down on kneecapping their economy, but it did set the stage for the return of Labour). More to the point though, the Madman is in a position of strength, the Dumbass is a position of ignorance and weakness. The idea that any leader would purposely try to publicly be seen as a fool, and to keep the act up for months or years, just to obtain some hypothetical bargaining leverage is absurd.

This is just Scott Adams, who understands Trump's policy objective is stupid as fuck, making up an excuse to justify supporting him. But the simple fact is Trump is an actual moron - he knows tarrifs are a hammer that can be used strategically and obtain effective outcomes, so why not use them all the time for everything? It's the same logic as his proposal to nuke hurricanes. He knows he has a hammer, so everything is a nail, no matter how much his aids try to convince him to stop wildly swinging around the hammer and smashing everything. The fact that Scott Adams had to construct this wild theory from whole cloth just shows how out of touch he is, willing to expend energy and time and his public credibility (whatever is left) just so he can stay in his safe Trump is God and will solve all my problems bubble.