There's one person to blame for the rise of Donald Trump, and that's President Barack Obama, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal writes in a Friday op-ed piece for
The Wall Street Journal.
"The president truly doesn't get enough credit for creating one of the most polarizing forces in American politics today" said Jindal. "No, not Hillary — that is more Bill's doing.
"Let's be honest: There would be no Donald Trump dominating the political scene today if it were not for President Obama . . . Trump often diagnoses the ills Mr. Obama has caused, but his prescriptions are just as often wrong. America deserves better."
Voters tend to react in open-seat presidential elections to make up for the deficiencies of the outgoing president, said Jindal, pointing to the 1980 election, when Americans reacted to President Jimmy Carter by electing "cowboy" Ronald Reagan, who made it clear the Soviet Union's days were numbered.
And after Reagan's eight years of "supply-side economics and broadsides against welfare queens, we got a kinder, gentler President H.W. Bush," said Jindal, and after that, "we got a loquacious Arkansas governor promising to invent a third way forward focused on the economy at home."
Clinton's "empathy and skirt-chasing" led to plain-spoken President George W. Bush, and after that, "professorial President Barack Obama' promised competence.
"After seven years of the cool, weak and endlessly nuanced 'no drama Obama,' voters are looking for a strong leader who speaks in short, declarative sentences," said Jindal.
"Middle-class incomes are stagnant, and radical Islam is on the march across the Middle East. No wonder voters are responding to someone who promises to make America great again."
"Imagine how different things would be if Mr. Obama had pursued a stimulus bill that included targeted tax cuts and infrastructure spending balanced with gradual entitlement reforms instead of a stimulus that merely dusted off congressional Democrats' wish list of pork-barrel projects and ideological experiments," said Jindal.
Also, if Obama had worked with Republicans on healthcare reform instead of pushing through "the largest expansion of government-welfare programs in a generation," or had not relied on executive orders, Americans would not be looking for a different kind of replacement, Jindal said.
"President Obama loves to construct straw men so he can contrast his heroic self against them," said Jindal. "Donald Trump needs no characterization; he is capable of being absurd on his own, no outside help required."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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