The man who an older generation of Indian-Americans remembers as their wunderkind who went on to become a bible-thumping governor of a southern state, may yet come in a new avatar as the Secretary of Health in a Donald Trump presidency. Strong rumors, including an in-depth piece in New York Magazine Nov. 15, suggest the former governor of Louisiana who called President-elect Donald Trump a “megalomaniacal madman” during the primaries, may yet become the best weapon in the destruction of the Affordable Care Act, which the incoming president has often said was his primary goal.
Even before Jindal ran in the presidential primaries, he had declared the Republican Party as the party of “No” and the “Stupid” party, urging the leaders to come out with concrete proposals rather than just opposing the sitting president’s healthcare and other proposals. Now he will have a chance to do that if Trump puts him at the helm of HHS.
Jindal has the chops for it, if ideology does not get in his way. The Rhodes Scholar was appointed the youngest president of the University of Louisiana System at 28; and at 31, the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals; followed in 2001 as principal advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services in President George W. Bush’s administration. He won two successive elections to the U.S. Congress becoming the 2nd Indian-American elected after California Democratic Rep. Dalip Singh Saund in 1957; then on to Governor of Louisiana from 2008-2016, spanning President Obama’s tenure at the White House; working through major hardships when repeated natural and man-made disasters hit his state; and then — fading into the ether after a miserable poor presidential bid — until now.
The Indian-American community saw the young policy wonk turn into a hard-right conservative, but now may hope to see glimmers of the old Jindal back in Washington – a brilliant, data-spouting, non-ideological analyst tackling the challenges of healthcare.
“Once considered the smartest man in every room, Bobby Jindal ruined his own reputation along with his state,” claims New York Magazine, but recognizes the Indian-American’s name is being “heard most often” in connection with HHS and that “makes a lot of sense” in terms of his resume. But not for his work in Congress or in Baton Rouge, it qualifies. Jindal’s ambition for the presidency, the magazine says, led to his ruin as he tried to become the champion of the Christian Right. Indian-Americans also criticized him for what they saw as his dismissive views on ethnic identities and for abandoning his heritage.
Analysts also accuse Jindal of running Louisiana into an economic hole with ideology-based tax proposals and education reform that drove down his popularity ratings to embarrassingly low levels when he opted out of the presidential nomination race. Whether Jindal will end up being Trump’s candidate remains to be seen, especially after his mouthing some of the best one-liners including how the real estate Moghul did not know what is in the Bible “because he is not in it.”
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