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It's a piece of conventional wisdom spouted by both Trump allies and Trump haters:

"You can't figure him out!" Trump supporters say with delight.

"Don't be distracted by his attempts to distract you!" scream his detractors.

The underlying message is the same: Trump is always playing three-dimensional chess while the media covering him is playing checkers. Everything Trump says, does and tweets is part of a grand plan that the press isn't smart enough to understand.

"See!" the three-dimensional chess crowd shouted. "He's doing it! Turning the narrative from one focused on his 'both sides' defense of the violence caused by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Virginia to one focused on the removal of historic statues!"

Winning the former fight is impossible, they (rightly) note. But winning the latter fight is far more possible.

True! There is far more reasonable disagreement in this country about whether -- and how -- statues of Confederate generals should be removed than there is about whether white supremacists are, um, bad.

But. I would argue that the evidence we have from Trump's life -- in the business world and now in the political sphere -- makes at least as compelling a case that the President is actually playing zero-dimensional chess. Or in other words, he's not playing chess at all. Or checkers for that matter.

Consider this anecdote via Trump's seminal book "Art of the Deal."

Two sentences really jump out to me: 1) "I play it very loose" and 2) "I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops."

It's reasonable to assume that Trump's approach to business (and life) in the 1980s is not dissimilar to his approach to politics and life in 2017. (Trump was 41 when "Art of the Deal" came out in November 1987. He's 71 now.) Everything else about his persona has only become more heightened since then, so why not this too?

Seen though that lens, Trump's candidacy and presidency take on a different tinge.

Rather than executing a brilliant long-term plan to take advantage of voters' discontent with the status quo and too-careful politicians, Trump just as likely sort of happened into his positioning in the race: as the anti-establishment, anti-political correctness, anti-polite figure that Republican voters were craving.

Ditto Trump's approach in the White House. A convincing case can be made that Trump's strategy, such as it exists, is to say provocative things -- and then react to the reaction to what he said. That there isn't any secret plan beyond being in the moment, dominating the news and making sure, no matter what, that people are talking about him.

Could Trump truly be playing a game so sophisticated that no one can fully understand it but him? I suppose. But the most obvious answer is usually the right one. And if you take Trump's word for how he lives his life, the most obvious answer is that Trump in the White House is doing what he's done his whole life: just winging it.

Continued here:
What if Donald Trump is just winging it? - CNN