One of the forces that may result in calming down Donald Trump is the complexity of accomplishing anything in Washington. Credit:AP For all of Trump's admonishing of the media as the "enemy of the people", it's clear that in this administration, select parts of the media – especially those that share and reinforce Trump's own world view – are not only trusted friends, but are at times, converging with the voice of the administration itself. In an increasingly polarised media landscape, many people live in bubbles – only reading and watching things that confirm our world view. But in Trump's case, the bubble is shaping the country's agenda and the chaotic atmosphere. In January, Trump lashed out seemingly randomly at Chelsea Manning, the recently-pardoned Wikileaks whistleblower, calling her an "ungrateful traitor" on Twitter. It came shortly after a segment about Manning on Fox accompanied by a chyron (the "headline" at the bottom of the screen) that read "ungrateful traitor". A day earlier, Trump threatened to "send in the feds" to deal with gun violence in Chicago – shortly after a Fox segment about precisely the possibility of federal government intervention in the city. It's not only Fox that fires up the President. Several of his most egregious claims in recent months have come from or mirror those on America's most prominent conspiracy website Infowars – which is perhaps best known for pushing the lie that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.

Illustration: Dionne Gain Infowars, which has had Trump on as a guest, ran a series of stories claiming the mainstream media was ignoring terrorist attacks or covering up the Islamist links of perpetrators before Trump made his extraordinary claim this month that the "dishonest press" didn't want to report such attacks because they had their "reasons" (wink wink, tip the tinfoil hat). The website also pushed the idea that three million "illegals" had voted in the November election before Trump began to push that very notion. Of course, most politicians are voracious news consumers, who respond to the day's big stories and find their agendas influenced by popular commentators; Alan Jones has long been an unofficial Member for Circular Quay in NSW governments for decades, so influential has he been on various issues. But what's happening with Trump is on another level entirely – he's not simply mindful of or influenced by the media – he's enmeshed in a right-wing media ecosystem that seems to have a direct line into his head and Twitter account. It was telling that, when Trump was looking to refocus his campaign during some difficult months during the 2016 campaign, he did not look to an experienced political operative or Republican party strategist, instead appointing the former chairman of the nationalist website Breitbart, Stephen Bannon. Trump's scattergun approach to public statements and policy – see it and tweet it, read it and say it – is one reason why his administration, only a month old, can feel so exhausting, as every media-driven flourish, true or not, spins off days of news coverage. Following Trump is literally like flicking through TV stations or sitting on Twitter – a whir of opinions, issues and half-truths, with no solid agenda and often little grounding in reality.

It's not simply tiring though, but of course a reckless way to run the White House, especially given how unreliable some of his sources prove to be and his apparent inability to sift garbage from fact. The claim about illegal voting is supposedly going to serve as a pretext for a "major investigation", but has done little so far but fuel further distrust and paranoia in the electoral system among some of his supporters. Two of the police officers in Fox's Sweden segment say their views were misrepresented. At least Trump's comments on that issue turned out to be relatively low stakes, but what happens when a listless commander-in-chief watches an incendiary story about a more hostile foreign power? Or what happens where there is a real crisis – a pandemic or a terror attack? What will be his source of information and guide his decisions? Here is a person with access to high-level and classified domestic and international intel, yet it's TV producers and the more shouty corners of the internet informing many of his public statements. Loading People used to joke during the campaign about hoping Trump's aides would steal his phone to stop him from tweeting recklessly. We can add to that wishful thinking the hope that someone will unplug the White House wi-fi and switch off the damn television. And that the counsel of better informed members of his administration can prevail.

Josephine Tovey is a Fairfax Media journalist in New York.

