The rise of Donald Trump has led to people wondering how we got here. The answer that some Republicans have landed on? Blame Obama.
Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana and former Republican presidential candidate, has written a whole op-ed about it for the Wall Street Journal, subtly entitled, “President Obama Created Donald Trump.”
In a passage excerpted by The Rachel Maddow Show‘s blog, Jindal says that voters like Trump because he’s a “strong” course correction for eight years of a “weak” President Obama:
Let’s be honest: There would be no Donald Trump, dominating the political scene today if it were not for President Obama.
I believe that voters tend to act in open-seat presidential elections to correct for the perceived deficiencies of the incumbent…. 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.
So, is Bobby Jindal saying people dislike Obama because he didn’t bring the drama during his presidency, and they find him too long-winded? Should we #AskBobby?
Jindal, however, isn’t the only conservative trying pin Trump’s rise onto Obama. Conservative commentator Ross Douthat previously wrote a New York Times op-ed about how Trump’s run takes Obama’s campaigning to its logical conclusion: “First, the reality TV element in Trump’s campaign is a kind of fun-house-mirror version of the celebrity-saturated Obama effort in 2008.” Also, he thinks Obama acclimated people to a president who’s also a bully. “He’s also proving, in his bullying, overpromising style, that voters are increasingly habituated to the idea of an ever more imperial presidency — which is also a trend that Obama’s choices have accelerated,” Douthat writes.
Douthat also mentions how George Bush’s disastrous presidency, Republican treatment of working class grievances, and the weakness of Trump’s rivals are to blame. But he places more blame upon Obama.
If you want to read others expressing similar sentiments, the Daily Intelligencer has a compilation here.
(via Rachel Maddow Show/MSNBC and New York Times)