Realizing Trump is an idiot savant version of the protagonist from the early Neal Stephenson novel Interface. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-needs-to-stop-rationalizing-president-trumps-behavior/

In the book, a politician gets a chip in his head wired directly to realtime, Nielsen-style approval ratings.

The feedback loop means his public speeches adaptively reflect whatever’s maximally appealing to the zeitgeist. Or at least the zeit-gut.

Trump doesn’t have a chip. But he’s got Twitter & cable & his own yawning, bottomless need for constant attention & approbation.

Which is to say, he’s not some master strategist, but he’s psychologically broken in a way that turns out to be oddly adaptive for politics.