It isn’t just that he has no understanding of policy, nor any knowledge of history to guide him; or that he conforms to none of the norms of custom, morality or law. It is that, even understood as a wholly self-involved, self-serving bundle of id, one whose only motive is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, Mr. Trump is incomprehensible. His actions make no sense even in terms of rational self-interest. It’s all just random impulses, fleeting grudges, synaptic burps, based on who spoke to him last, what he saw on TV or what he had for breakfast, for all I know.

But there’s an upside to all this. If there’s nothing we can do – if we lose no matter what – then we might as well do what we want. When nothing you can do will improve your fortunes, when the outcome is the same regardless of which option you choose, the stakes converge on zero.

The President will do what he will do. Nothing we can do will change that. So we might as well not try. There’s liberation in that