Feehery: Trumpus Rex

Tragedy returns as farce.

In the Greek Tragedy, Laius consults an oracle who tells him that his son, Oedipus, will kill him and then marry his wife, Jocasta.

The lesson here? Never consult an oracle. 

Had they just lived their lives in pleasant ignorance, Laius and Jocasta could have raised a loving son, and kept a close eye on his murderous tendencies.

I kind of feel the same way about the political establishment and Donald Trump. 

If they would just do their jobs, like come together on simple things, like getting people back to work or getting rid of ridiculous COVID-19 mandates, they wouldn’t be creating room for somebody like Donald Trump to thrive. 

But the establishment can’t help itself, especially congressional Democrats and the Biden administration, who are doing remarkably little to fix the true problems that face this country.

We have out-of-control inflation. So, the Democrats push to inject even more increasingly worthless currency into the system in a weird hope that increasing inflation will somehow prove to be popular with working-class voters. One of their economists even let slip that inflation is a high-class problem, not something that the lower classes should worry about. But that is exactly wrong. Elites don’t have to pinch pennies to survive.

We have gas prices going through the roof. So, the Democrats, in the name of climate change, take measures to make fossil fuels even more expensive. Joe Biden’s first act as president was to cancel the Keystone pipeline. He made it harder for oil companies to produce gas domestically. When Biden came into office, America was exporting excess energy. Now, we must beg OPEC to increase production.

We have small and medium-sized businesses that can’t find enough employees to get their companies back on the right track after a year of useless COVID-19 shutdowns. Instead of making it easier for employers to hire and harder for potential employees to stay at home, the Biden administration does exactly the opposite. They extend the welfare state so young workers have very little incentive to get back to work. And Biden promises to enact a vaccine mandate to include small businesses. If you don’t take a vaccine, you can’t work in the Biden world.

We have a border crisis pretty much encouraged by the Biden administration. Hundreds of thousands of people from all across the world listened carefully to what Biden promised — no more ICE enforcement, no more building of the wall — and what they heard is America is opened to anybody who wants to cross the border. And so they cross the border. 

On issue after issue, the Biden administration and its allies in Congress are making it easier for Trump to come back stronger than ever. 

It reminds me of the GEICO chainsaws ad, where instead of fleeing from a serial killer in a running car, a group of terrified potential victims choose to hide in a garage filled with chainsaws, much to the disgust of the supposed villain. 

It’s hard to know why the Democrats are so clueless about the real concerns of the average American. It could be that they are primarily funded by a group of elite progressives who are largely out of touch with working-class America. It could be that Biden is just a bad president who makes really bad decisions on a consistent basis. It could be that this is a temporary moment when the ideologues get to run the show, but pragmatism will return once the Republicans take back the Congress. 

But no matter what the reason, the more the Democrats become fixated on the certain return of Trump, the more they take steps to make that return more inevitable. 

You don’t need an oracle to see how this is going to turn out. 

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.).