To a large degree, he appears to be making policy from the podium, responding to the propaganda organ Fox News and bouncing ideas off a small circle of loyalists. His cabinet and the White House are left to respond to what Trump says on the fly and develop that into a quasi-coherent policy.

This is no way to run a country, unless your intention is to run it into the ground.

This is now the American quandary: The wheels of government are being forced to turn on the erratic whims of an egomaniac.

This is a man relying more on emotion than government intelligence or personal intelligence. Everything with Trump is about grit and gut, sensing the energy of the room, the crowd, the aching masses, and saying whatever he thinks will energize and animate them, anything that will cause them to suspend disbelief and vest faith in a sham.

Nothing need be true. Nothing need be effective policy. Nothing need be rooted in data. The only requirement is that he says whatever he says with conviction and that he commands unending fidelity from those who have already abandoned all principle to stand with him.

But a man with Trump’s gaping insecurity and consuming fear is not a person who can be a stable steward of the national trust and the national interest.