Lots of people, especially Republicans, are befuddled by Donald Trump’s rise in the presidential polls. But that rise says more about President Obama and his failed legacy than it does about The Donald and his popularity.
American voters tend to swing like a pendulum. When a president takes us too far in one direction, they start to swing back in the opposite direction—at least temporarily. Trump happens to be the brashest and most outlandish Obama critic, which allows him to take advantage of public discontent.
Just consider some of the issues driving anti-Obama sentiment:
The public wants someone who recognizes the real problems. That includes the lackluster economy, Washington’s inability to control the borders, the massive rise in federal debt, the growing number of Americans getting some form of federal subsidies, the dramatic rise in health insurance premiums (greatly exacerbated by Obamacare), and the decline in our standing among both our allies and foes around the world.
And yet Obama repeatedly glosses over or dismisses these challenges—many of which he caused. After more than six years of denial and deceit, voters are eager to embrace someone who will level with them about the country’s real problems.
The public is tired of Obama defending big government, even as he covers up for its failures and fraud. The public has been inundated with reports of government scandals: the IRS harassing conservative groups seeking nonprofit status; veterans dying at the hands of the Veterans Administration; Benghazi and other national security threats; the massive fraud in Medicare and Medicaid; Social Security paying dead people; the Justice Department targeting journalists; cyberhackers stealing government employees’ personal information; and bureaucrats looking at porn on the job or not showing up for work. There’s so many scandals that we can’t remember or keep track of them all.
And yet Obama sloughs off the criticisms and pushes forward with more big-government proposals—such as free college tuition—with no recognition that he can’t properly run the government we have.
Economics has never been Obama’s strong point. The man probably understands less about what it takes to run a business and make a payroll than any president, including Jimmy Carter. So a successful businessperson who has actually created jobs and met a payroll, like Trump, is going to attract attention.
The public is fed up with political correctness. The most amazing thing about the recent tragic shooting of four Marine recruiters and a sailor in Tennessee is that the Obama administration decided to treat the crime as domestic terrorism, even though it has spent the past six years refusing to associate Islam with those who are committing atrocities both here and abroad.
While it is absolutely true that the vast majority of Muslims are appalled by such actions, that doesn’t mean we can ignore the connection. And the public has gotten tired of seeing Obama dance around this issue.
The pushback against Obama and his policies has been a political phenomenon. He singlehandedly created the tea party and is responsible for countless new groups and organizations trying to return the country to a fiscally responsible, constitutional government.
He triggered a huge backlash at the polls in 2010 and 2014, in Washington but especially in the states. And Rasmussen polling repeatedly finds that only 25 percent to 30 percent of the public think the country is headed in the right direction.
The voters are ready for a change, and Trump has capitalized on that dissatisfaction.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that while Trump may have a slight lead, with 18.2 percent in the latest Real Clear Politics average of polls, Jeb Bush (13.4), Scott Walker (12.0), Marco Rubio (7.0), Rand Paul (5.6), and Ted Cruz (5.4) are splitting the large majority of Republican voters who want a real conservative. As some of them eventually drop out, conservative and libertarian voters will likely shift to the remaining, non-Trump candidates.
No one can blame the public for wanting the anti-Obama. But that’s not Trump, whose ego, self-centeredness, and lack of political experience and pro-growth policies actually resemble the president. Once conservatives settle on one or two of the real candidates, Trump will likely be relegated to the bottom of the stack.