As with most things Trump, the furor over the “fire and fury” has divided the nation in two — those who believe the president is a loose cannon, impulsively blurting whatever flits through his mind, and those who believe his inflammatory talk is a wily combination of politically savvy instincts and a gut-driven populism that simply aims to please.

When President Trump went off script Tuesday to deliver a startling threat to North Korea — “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” — it was as if the nation relived the most lurid themes of the 2016 campaign in one chilling moment. . . . At the core of the anxiety over Trump’s remarks is the worry that the president made his threat without consideration of what might follow.