The election of Donald Trump can seem overdetermined, to use academic parlance: from Russian skulduggery to Hillary Clinton ignoring Wisconsin to racism stoked by the election of first black president, a million different factors explain Trump’s win and Clinton’s loss.

But what if Obama himself deserves a significant measure of blame? That’s the provocative contention of Reed Hundt, a card-carrying member of the Democratic establishment who served on Obama’s transition team. Hundt was, and is, a huge fan of the 44th president — but in his book “A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama’s Defining Decisions,” he argues that by not responding to the economic meltdown of 2008 with sufficient ambition and alacrity, Obama inadvertently gave us the political reality we’re living in today.

In this episode of “The Scrum,” Peter Kadzis speaks with Hundt about what he thinks Obama got wrong, and why — then sizes up Hundt's thesis with Adam Reilly.