John Feehery: The great distraction

Groundhog Day might have been last week, but to the Democrats, every day is Jan. 6. Keeping the media’s focus on the mob that overwhelmed the Capitol building serves a salutatory purpose for congressional Democrats. It keeps the American people largely distracted from the hard swing to the left of the new Biden administration.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was in the crosshairs of the media and the Democrats last week. I had to spell-check her name because I barely know who she is but making Greene the face of the GOP is the stated political goal of liberal strategists. Kicking a freshman off of a couple committees is most likely not much skin off of her nose. First-term members, no matter who they are, are the last to be able to ask questions at committee hearings, last to be able to offer amendments at committee markups, last to get fundraising dollars based on committee assignments. But because Greene made some pretty crazy statements on Facebook before she ran for Congress, and because she might have said nice things about the kooky QAnon conspiracy in that same time frame, she must be vilified, demonized and demonetized.

Her new celebrity status will likely accrue her millions in fundraising dollars from a public that is more than willing to support anybody who is hated by the political establishment.

Which brings me to Donald Trump. Nobody is more hated by the political establishment than Trump, who will go on trial for inciting the mob that descended on the Capitol on the Democrats’ Groundhog Day.

What the president did on Jan. 6 was monumentally stupid. He told the crowd that assembled in front of the White House that he was going to lead the protest personally, and then he went to lunch after he finished speaking. So, he lied to them. And what was he trying to accomplish exactly? The vice president’s hands were tied, not by the idiots who stormed the Capitol (thankfully), but by the Constitution and by the rule of law.

But Trump is gone now. He left the White House and flew to Florida and he hasn’t really been heard from since. You can’t kick somebody out of office if they are already out of office. So why are the Democrats going through with this impeachment trial farce?

Because like the focus on Greene, it distracts the public from the real Biden agenda.

To be clear, I like Joe Biden personally. I have met him several times. He is a gregarious Irishman, who does all the little things that a politician does, and he does them well. He thanks the janitors and the policemen. He eats ice cream cones. He kisses babies (well maybe too much so). He seems like a middle of the road kind of guy. But something happened to Biden and his Democratic Party on his way to the White House. He and they became radical.

And now that they have absolute power, they are going to govern, not to unite the country, but to move it far to the left.

They are sharply increasing the cost of energy to combat climate change (have you seen the price of gas lately?). They are backing the teachers unions, who want kids to continue to not learn remotely, because these unions are the president’s biggest supporters. They stopped building the wall and stopped enforcing immigration laws because that’s what the activist left demands. They are purging the military of anybody who voted for Trump. And they are now in the process of passing a huge spending bill that Larry Summers says is unnecessary. This bill will radically expand the size, scope and power of the federal government, all in the name of COVID-19 relief.

The prosecution of first Greene and now Trump won’t change the daily lives of average Americans, who are far more focused on getting their kids back into school, grappling with increased costs of food, gas, rent and tuition, and otherwise trying to get their families back to some sense of normalcy. But The Great Distraction will nicely cloak the hard shift to the left of the Biden administration and their allies in the Congress.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when he was majority whip and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).