Oh Good, Trump is Already Planning His 2020 Campaign

In the latest sign that our political system is definitely not broken, Politico reports today that Donald Trump is already gearing up for his 2020 presidential campaign. Note for you time nerds out there: The current year is 2017. He has been president for less than one year of his four-year term. Per Politico:

Trump is mapping out a fall fundraising tour that is expected to fill his campaign bank account with tens of millions of dollars. His team has tracked dozens of potential Democratic rivals, a list of names that ranges from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. And his administration has received political advice from a top campaign pollster from his 2016 campaign, who has urged the president to keep up his attacks on the mainstream media.

This is apparently a response to everybody who thinks he’s done a terrible job thus far and may not even finish out his current term, much less run for a new one—a group that includes more than a few Republicans. He’ll be heading to Arizona on Tuesday for a money-raising rally, and the RNC chairwoman has already sent out 100 staffers to swing states on his behalf. They’re also tracking Democrat hopefuls, and operating under the assumption that he’ll face dozens of rivals attracted by the attention that comes from going head-to-head against Trump. Some potential Republican usurpers, like John Kasich, are also in the crosshairs. The extent of the operation, this early in the game, is deeply disheartening:

The nerve center of the emerging Trump-2020 campaign is RNC headquarters on Capitol Hill. The committee has begun conducting rapid-response against prospective Democratic rivals, casting them as hell-bent on preventing Trump from advancing his platform. Last week, it sent out a news release attacking New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, California Sen. Kamala Harris, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

“The 2020 Democrat field is trying to stand out by obstructing the president’s agenda,” the release said.

This language, along with a strategy focused on criticizing the media, makes it clear that Trump is far more interested in winning than governing, and that his road map to winning basically entails escalating the holy war with Democrats, liberals, and the press. It worked for him in 2016, and it may work again in 2020, but it dooms the rest of us to having an ineffectual president operating fighting a public relations war of attrition for the next three years. It’s going to be awful.