In some ways, Trump’s situation is reminiscent of Clinton’s when he took office in 1993, after running as a “new Democrat” who pledged to challenge “brain-dead politics in both parties.” Clinton, to put it mildly, had a much more detailed understanding of policy than Trump does. But he faced a similar political challenge: He had campaigned and won on a new direction for his party that had little support among its existing institutions. There were relatively few Democrats truly attuned to his message that Clinton could appoint to fill the departments and agencies; few members of Congress entirely on board with his agenda; and, apart from the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, few party institutions supporting the elements of his program that most departed from Democratic orthodoxy. (Those elements included passing the North American Free Trade Agreement, shrinking the federal workforce, and reforming welfare to require work.)
The tension between Clinton’s desire to reposition the party and the entrenched preferences of almost all of its other power centers contributed enormously to the turbulence of his first two years. Only after Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994—in a backlash against that chaos—did Clinton feel sufficiently liberated to pursue his new direction over the continuing opposition of much of his party’s infrastructure. That declaration of independence, crystallized in his strategy of “triangulation,” set him on a path toward reelection in 1996.
Trump finds himself in a similar initial position with few potential appointees steeped in his agenda and few other party power centers committed to its most distinctive elements, like the reconsideration of free trade and international alliance. Even more so than Clinton in his first months, Trump, as if through magnetic force, is finding himself pulled by this power imbalance toward the agenda that dominated his party before he arrived.
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