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Consider, for example, some brilliant guidance in 2017: Trump — who has no nautical, military or engineering experience — decided the electromagnetic catapults the Navy planned to install on aircraft carriers to launch airplanes into the sky were technically inferior to the steam catapults used in older-generation ships. “Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out,” Trump said in announcing he would order the Navy to replace the new catapults. Though experts say the move would cost billions of dollars and degrade the carriers’ capabilities, Trump has repeatedly returned to the topic in the years since, forcing Navy officials to put on their best game face in public pronouncements about the Trump’s off-the-wall comments.

A favorite object of Trump’s expertise remains the wall he is attempting to build along the southern border. His outlandish suggestions include proposals to paint it black so it would be too hot to climb, electrify it and cap it with spikes. The New York Times reported that he considered adding a water-filled moat that would be stocked with snakes and alligators, a farcical idea for which aides nonetheless felt compelled to seek a cost estimate. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the Army Corps of Engineers have spent months constructing prototypes and convincing the commander in chief to abandon impractical, expensive and constantly changing demands.

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It is tempting to laugh off the Donald’s most ridiculous ideas as comic relief that will never be implemented because cooler and wiser heads in the government will ultimately prevail. Indeed, Trump’s defenders often try to defend his wackiest suggestions by declaring him an innovative thinker, usually just before he hangs them out to dry by denying he said the thing he clearly said or by pretending he was joking, as he did with his comments on disinfectants. “I was asking a question sarcastically,” he said Friday.

But these journeys deep into the abyss of the Trump mind have real effects on the workings of government and the behavior of individual Americans. Officials spend time and resources that should be directed toward addressing actual problems instead of studying Trump’s worst ideas and convincing him to back down. For example, Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, has been forced to intervene repeatedly with Trump over policies that Fauci says would compromise public health.

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Other officials burn their own hard-earned credibility by publicly defending Trump’s delusions. When Trump initially made his disinfectant recommendation, he paired it with this suggestion: “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.”

The look of obvious discomfort on the face of Deborah Birx, the administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, made her an Internet sensation. A day later, she defended Trump on Fox News by arguing, “when he gets new information, he likes to talk that through, out loud,” a head-scratching explanation that also contradicted Trump’s remark that he was being sarcastic.

When Trump says he was being ‘sarcastic,’ it’s just part of his gaslighting.

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But most concerning is the obvious issues these flights of fancy raise about Trump himself and his fitness for public office of any kind, let alone the presidency. Those questions have been apparent throughout his term, as when he claimed that windmills cause cancer (they don’t) or that the F-35 stealth fighter is literally invisible (it’s not). Donald J. Trump has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. He believes he knows more than anyone in the room when in fact he knows less. He can’t admit a mistake, even when doing so would be the smartest way out of the holes he invariably digs for himself.

Those traits were harmful enough when the country was riding high on relative peace and prosperity. During a global pandemic and a disastrous economic downturn, they can prove catastrophic. As Trump’s presumed election opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, tweeted, “I can’t believe I have to say this but don’t drink bleach.” The warning was specific to Trump’s foray into disinfectants, but it serves as an apt metaphor for his entire reign terror and stupidity.

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