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Imagine youre a member of Donald Trumps administration, or a Republican member of Congress. Whats the most important question youre asking yourself right now?

Theres a good chance its this: How can I manipulate the president into doing what I want him to do?

This may be the most important question in Washington as a whole, because this is a president like no other.

Lets take a few news items weve seen just in the past day or so:

The picture were getting is of a president spending long stretches of time watching television, consumed with anger at slights real or imagined, as aides and other political actors circle around him trying to find a way to use his capricious whims to their advantage or at least minimize the damage he can do. The agenda is liable to be seized by whatever happens to be bothering Trump that day, whether its the size of the crowd at his inaugural or the fact that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than for him, both profound threats to his ego that he cant seem to let go of.

President Trump questioned media reports and photographs that showed the size of Inauguration Day crowds, speaking to CIA employees at CIA headquarters on Jan. 21 in Langley, Va. (The Washington Post)

Even apart from the substance of these reports is the fact that the Trump administration is already leaking like a sieve, as people within the inner circle voice their frustration, jockey for position, and use the press to discredit their rivals. Yes, in every administration there are competitions for the presidents ear and internal squabbles as people try to maximize their influence. Whats remarkable is how in this one theyre becoming public so quickly and that even his loyalists are treating the president like a child whose disturbing behavior has to be managed.

Trumps personal quirks and weaknesses could turn ordinary internal conflicts into outright chaos. Because he not only knows so little about policy but seems to have few fixed beliefs, his public statements are completely unpredictable. So he might say that Republicans will give insurance for everybody, leaving both administration spokespeople and members of Congress scrambling to explain a promise they have no intention of keeping.

It isnt just that Trump is uninterested in policy. To take one comparison, Ronald Reagan didnt much care about the details either. But Reagan had a clear ideological vision that guided his administration, and it wasnt hard to predict what hed think about any particular proposal or action. In the Trump administration, on the other hand, you have traditional Republicans who will sometimes be at odds with the nationalist/populist cohort led by Steve Bannon, and which side the president favors at a given moment could be determined by something the nincompoops on Fox & Friends said that morning.

That means that most of the time, no one can claim or believe that theyre carrying out Trumps true wishes or agenda, since those are subject to complete revision at a moments notice. Thats not exactly a recipe for a smoothly efficient administration. Instead, it may wind up with dozens or even hundreds of power centers spread throughout the government, each pursuing its own agenda, sometimes in concert, sometimes in conflict.

At the moment theres an almost comical element to all that, and Democrats might take some solace in it. After all, its better to face an adversary at war with itself than one that knows exactly what it wants to do and how to do it. But what happens when the Trump administration confronts a crisis, as it surely will before long? To just take one example, Trump has repeatedly said that NATO is obsolete and suggested that if one of its members were threatened he might not come to its defense. Yet Secretary of Defense James Mattis just told the British defense minister that America has an unshakable commitment to NATO. So which is it? We may not find out until Vladimir Putin invades Estonia.

So the shape of the Trump administration could be determined less by a vision the president himself is guided by than by how skillful each faction of inside players is at manipulating him. Its not exactly reassuring.

Read more:
The coming struggle for control of Donald Trump's mind - Washington Post (blog)