Do you remember what monstrous, contemptible or demonstrably false thing Donald Trump said one year ago? Six months ago? O.K., last week? Probably not. The effect of this presidency-by-horrors is to induce amnesia in the public, as if we’d all been given a memory-loss drug.

To recap: A year ago, Trump lied repeatedly in his first debate with Hillary Clinton, and was reminded that he had called women pigs, slobs and dogs. Six months go, he settled for $25 million two lawsuits and a fraud case regarding his phony university, a huckster scheme that duped people out of their personal savings. And last week, he unleashed an attack on the free-speech rights of athletes, using a profanity that could not be repeated on the news without a warning to children.

It’s. All. Going. According. To. Plan. The Trump presidency is a monumental failure on multiple levels. None of what he has promised — the wall, paid for by Mexico, repealing Obamacare, “so much winning” — has been achieved. He’s made much of the world hate us, and a majority of his fellow citizens believe that he is unfit for office.

But while his legislative agenda is in tatters, his master strategy — throwing out distraction bombs on a regular basis, while turning the screws of power toward a backward era — is working. In just the last two weeks, he has allowed a humanitarian crisis affecting more than three million American citizens to fester, reportedly mocked a dying senator, and threatened to annihilate a nation of 25 million people.