I think it’s useful to understand Trump’s genius act. Given that many of us have some time on our hands, I’ll tell a story.

Years ago, an actuarial firm held an NFL play-off pool. Being math nerds, they came up with a cool point system. You predicted the score of each team in each game, and you were assessed a number of points equal to the sum of the squares of your errors. Example. You say Colts 20, Pats 10, and the Pats win 17–3. You missed the Colts score by 17 and the Pats score by 7. You are assessed 289+49 points. At the end of the Superbowl, the participant with the lowest total assessment wins the money.

When the Superbowl arrived, the ultimate winner of the pool was in the middle of the pack, with no chance of winning if the game went according to the betting odds, because those in the lead would protect that lead by betting with the odds. (The Redskins played the heavily favored Broncos.) So, the eventual pool winner gamed the system. She(!) “predicted” the Redskins would win in a blow-out, which, to everyone’s surprise, including hers, they did. But she was the only one in the game who didn’t get hit with a sh*t-ton of points. (For actuaries, their grasp of adverse selection wasn’t all it could be.)

Point is — and I know you’re all wondering — although the winner LOOKED LIKE a football-prognosticating savant, she was just gaming the system that rewarded the person who most LOOKED LIKE a football-prognosticating savant. She faked it till she maked it. Everyone asked her “How did you KNOW?” She could have said, “I didn’t know. I don’t know beans about football, but I do understood OUR game.” But she didn’t. She said “Sometimes, you have a hunch.” Genius. Pure, stable genius.

Trumplethinskin (my name for the guy who allocates ventilators on the basis of which governor is nicest to him) is gaming the political system. That’s what he does. Falling for it is what we do. And so it goes.