Today Trump is disappointed with Putin and shrugs off Russia–China ties. Yesterday he was praising Putin and warning about that very alliance. A few days earlier, he was disappointed again. What’s going on here? Is Trump bipolar? Or just unable to grasp that long-term relationships often fluctuate while the trajectory remains the same? More likely, he knows exactly what he’s doing. His voters—and, actually, most Americans—can’t follow long-term strategy. They need politics in snack-sized bites of junk food—one mood at a time. Trump delivers. His swings aren’t illness; they’re theater. And then, of course, there are stage lights. He’d rather die than let them dim