September 15, 2025

At the height of Trump’s tariff negotiations, Wall Street traders developed a new strategy to make money: assume that, despite the tough talk, whenever another country stood up to him, Trump always chickened out. The “TACO trade” became an instant hit among those looking to profit. It also coined a phrase that revealed a deeper truth about Trump: behind the bluster, he is an insecure coward.

When it came to dealing with Trump, foreign governments were onto something. Now, it seems their approach may serve as a roadmap for his domestic political opponents. In recent weeks, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has refused to back down as Trump threatens to deploy the U.S. military to the streets of Chicago.

Pritzker flatly rejected Trump’s “crime-fighting” rationale and called it what it was — dictatorship. Counterintuitively, instead of de-escalating the rhetoric, Pritzker escalated it, raising the political stakes for Trump. So far, that strategy has proven successful, and it may ultimately be studied as a template for others in government and the private sector.

Like most bullies, Trump surrounds himself with...