My favorite former Wisconsin Congressman, Steve Gunderson, is not a fan of Donald Trump, but he understands:

I came into politics during the Vietnam War. I became a moderate Republican — at of all places the University of Wisconsin. During 22 years of elected office in Wisconsin and Washington, my legislative districts leaned Democrat. My political survival depended upon building a bipartisan coalition of voters committed to non-ideological problem solving. For convenience, I simply called myself a Lincoln Republican.

My commitment to bipartisanship is shown in recent ways. I worked with President Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and currently serve on President Obama’s White House Fellows Selection Commission.

Such a resume would suggest that Donald Trump is not my preferred candidate for president. And to be honest, he is not. His foreign policy and civil rights rhetoric are incredibly inconsistent with my view of Lincoln’s Republican Party.

But, I recognize something that is happening in American politics right now which Trump has identified and promoted to his political success. It goes beyond a conservative or liberal ideology. Rather, it reflects the frustration of America’s Working class.

And I blame President Obama. His presidency will be defined by his commitment to push and impose rather than build and construct public policy. It is defined by a rejection of the politics of collaboration for the politics of ideology. While this may cheer those on the left, it has not only hurt main street Americans, it has offended them.

The president’s tenure has been marked by partisan politics. No president, of either party, in my 30-plus years of government engagement has done more to advance their agenda through regulation, rather than bipartisan legislation. The American people have a history of selecting a president of one party and a Congress of another party as a check-and-balance. They thought that is what was happening now, until the president chose to impose his agenda through countless sets of regulations.

Recently, I returned home to rural Wisconsin to visit my dad (he just turned 91). We are a family that can be defined as moderate Republicans who respect politicians of both political parties. The weekend of conversations explained to me Donald Trump’s success and record turnouts in Republican primaries.

My brother explained, “A lot of people around here would vote for Trump.” He went on to explain that most reject Trump’s offensive rhetoric regarding race and ethnicity — even his lack of manners.

But he represents the voice of the American who works hard every day; gets things done and wonders why government can’t work together to find common ground. They are hoping that Trump’s business experience could lead to a new era of non-ideological, non-partisan results.

Don’t call them the silent majority. Call it the working-class revolt.

Exit polls confirm that Trump’s support crosses all ideological lines. If elected, he would be the most non-ideological president in my lifetime. But that is his appeal. Hilary Clinton is moving left to counter Bernie Sanders. Marco Rubio is moving right to counter Ted Cruz. Both strategies are rejected by Middle America.

The current administration has declared war on the private sector. As the president of the nation’s for-profit colleges, I’ve seen this first hand. We have some bad schools in our sector worthy of government discipline. But so does the rest of higher education. My disappointment is the administration’s refusal to not even engage in constructive conversations.

I wish this were an isolated experience. It is not. We have seen the identical philosophy imposed in almost every sector of private enterprise. What has been the result? The worst GNP recovery rates from any recession in American history.

In the five years preceding the Great Recession, America’s annual GDP averaged 5.74 percent. In the six years after the recession, it hovered in the low 3 percent range. In the last two quarters of 2015 it was 2.2 percent and 1.2 percent respectively! To give you comparison, China’s annual GDP during this same time was 8.1 percent — and they call it a recession.

Working people, working hard and never getting ahead, are frustrated. They have seen the polarization of politics leading to the paralysis of public policy. Rather than finding consensus they have witnessed the administration impose its wish through an incredible number of regulations while lifting up every segment of the American population except those hard at work every day.

And we wonder why Donald Trump is ahead?