Trump looks to 2020 but a more immediate peril looms: Democratic control, and impeachment power...

[DonViejo]

Trump looks to 2020 but a more immediate peril looms: Democratic control, and impeachment power, in the House

By Paul Kane August 26 at 10:00 AM

Some of President Trump’s advisers want him to bet his political future on a strategy that was most recently used by one of his most bitter rivals: President Bill Clinton.

As he picks fights with his own party’s congressional leaders, Trump is adopting his own version of “triangulation,” trying to forge a separate and distinct identity from both Republicans and Democrats. These advisers believe that dysfunction on Capitol Hill is likely to continue and that the further away Trump is positioned from the gridlock, the better his political standing will be heading toward his own reelection campaign in 2020.

“It’s right out of the Bill Clinton playbook. Triangulation is something that he perfected,” Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, told The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker this week.

The key difference is timing, and that’s what makes Trump’s bid, for now, so much more risky than what Clinton did as he prepared for his 1996 reelection campaign. Clinton’s move away from congressional Democrats came after a brutal 1994 midterm election that gave Republicans full control of the Capitol.

Trump is making a preemptive break with his would-be congressional allies barely seven months into office. This comes more than a year ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and at a moment when his party has control of both the House and Senate.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-looks-to-2020-but-a-more-immediate-peril-looms-democratic-control-and-impeachment-power-in-the-house/2017/08/25/c4fe5046-89dd-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html