Feehery: A whole new season of ‘Game of Thrones’

Donald Trump is a sober Robert Baratheon.

Baratheon was a notorious drunk in first season of “Games of Thrones,” back when the show was great again, unlike the Donald, who doesn’t touch the stuff.

Good King Robert ended the Targaryen Dynasty by leading a rebellion with his good friend Ned Stark, and his rule was full of jousting tournaments and big banquets.

{mosads}

Yeats said, “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Donald Trump is like King Robert, neither the best nor the worst. They fall somewhere in the middle, unlike Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. 

Snow lacked all conviction about Dany until she burned King’s Landing to a crisp. And by then, it was too late. 

Our president is passionate about some things. He wants to build a great wall, of course, but as we found in “Game of Thrones,” walls sometimes fall down. 

He has enough sense about him, though, to bring some perspective to those full of passionate intensity, like John Bolton.

War with Iran would be unwise. Good for Trump for pouring some cold water on that idea.

The president is also trying to bring some common sense to the abortion debate. Hey guys, when you ban abortions, even in the cases of rape, incest and life of the mother, you lose the vast majority of the American public. Good for Trump for mentioning that, rather pointedly.

Trump is clearly trying to position himself in the firm middle of public opinion. He thinks it’s great that Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., has a husband, he supports his daughter’s efforts on paid family leave, he wants to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure, he wants peace with North Korea, he wants China to stop ripping us off.    

I am looking forward to the jousting tournament on the National Mall on Independence Day.

The president might say some mighty extreme things on Twitter, but he is no extremist. 

Like just about any long-running television show, the early seasons of “Game of Thrones” were the best, mostly because the characters were so much impressive. Aside from King Robert, you had Tywin Lannister, Ned Stark and Jeor Mormont. They all seemed so much older, more seasoned, deeper. 

As the years progressed, the stars become younger, shallower, less well-developed, more immature. 

The president and the top two contenders in the Democratic primary — former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) — all come from roughly the same generation. They are baby boomers, older if not wiser. They are interesting in ways that the younger pretenders to the throne — Mayor Pete, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris  — are not. 

The fight for the Democratic nomination has all the elements of a good “Game of Thrones” episode. There is backbiting, of course, but also front-biting. 

Biden is the front-runner, based mostly on his high name ID, his long tenure as the Hand to Barack Obama, and support among the African American base of the Democratic Party. White millennials are notably uninterested in Uncle Joe, given that he is close to a half-century older than them and good deal more moderate. 

Generationally, Massachusetts Sen., Elizabeth Warren is more with Joe Biden, but emotionally, she breathes the fire of Dany’s dragon Drogon. She is more than willing to burn down the establishment and the capitalist system in order to achieve a better, more equitable society.

Her ideological soulmate, Sanders, has all the charm of the High Sparrow, the character in Seasons 5 and 6 who preached unrelenting religious fundamentalism. 

Cersei dispatched the preacher, much like Hillary Clinton dispatched the Vermont senator in the 2016 Democratic primary, with a combination of trickery and brute force. 

Can Sanders win where the High Sparrow lost, by mobilizing his most passionate base while expanding it to include the few pragmatic voters left in the Democratic coalition? 

Or will the Democrats go for somebody new, like a Mayor Pete or a Beto or a Kamala? 

It’s a whole new season. I like Robert Baratheon’s chances in this version of Game of Thrones.

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.).