Dear never-to-be President Bobby Jindal,
I’ve got to give you props for working so hard the past few years to create face-value policies that look good to your GOP pals in the short-term but have disastrous long-term consequences for Louisiana.
You’re about to top it off this weekend with “The Response” prayer rally funded by the American Family Association, an organization that displays a stunning amount of hate toward The LGBT Community and Muslims.
Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. Apparently the AFA didn’t get the memo.
As my memory recalls, last year the Oklahoma State Legislature thought it was a good idea to build a Ten Commandments statue and place it on public property.
To remind the state legislature of the First Amendment, a group of Satanists proposed erecting a stone statue of Satan for school children and families to enjoy on a school tour of the state capitol building.
Needless to say, the legislature took the Ten Commandments statue down to halt Satan’s arrival on the steps of their State Capitol. Take this as a warning: when you open the floodgates, you may not like what comes rushing through.
Ignoring history for your newfound belief in strict Evangelical Christianity must have sounded like a better idea though.
So when the Klu Klux Klan wants to host a rally in the PMAC will the LSU Board of Supervisors allow it? Or how about a less extreme example — would the board approve a gay rights rally or Muslim prayer service to be held at the PMAC?
Students should know your aims in hosting this prayer rally. It’s not to pray for the world, but to pray for a shot at being president.
You are trying your hardest to get the votes of hardline evangelicals who believe anything they hear on Fox News. For example, your target audience believed Steven Emerson when he proclaimed on Fox News that the British city of Birmingham is “totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go.”
Your conservative counterpart may have apologized for his erroneous mishap (after British Prime Minister David Cameron called him a “complete idiot”), and Fox News aired multiple retractions of the statement. Despite this, you announce the existence of no-go zones in Europe where Muslims, who you say want to colonize the western world, prohibit non-Muslims from entering.
Without even bothering to check the truthfulness of this absurd claim, you go ahead and just play it off as if it is this hidden truth that you have found at the end of a rainbow next to a pot of gold.
Too bad you couldn’t find this hidden truth treasure chest when you started your second term as governor. Maybe it would have revealed how your policies would be ineffective and detrimental to Louisiana’s future.
But luckily for you, the national news media did not pick up your ridiculous theory and run like wild fire with it. Could this be a testament to your irrelevance in American
politics?
Stop leaving your state to go make misinformed speeches. Come back and pay attention to the fiery trail of your miserable policies.
Stay awhile. Take a long, hard look at what you have done to this state. I would like to welcome you to the Bobby Jindal debacle — $1.4 billion budget shortfall, an eventual $1 billion in higher education cuts, thousands of citizens uninsured by your refusal to expand Medicaid and an education policy that blames bad test scores all on teachers instead of also recognizing societal factors.
The rest of the nation soon will find out that you left us here to die. 2016 will be your worst nightmare, and we will not be waiting with open arms when its over.
Justin DiCharia is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter at @JDiCharia.