By Brook A. Simmons

“They are in a terminal panic in Washington, my friends. They are frightened. They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill…You watch the establishment. All the knights and barons will be riding into the castle, pulling up the draw bridge in a minute, because they are coming. All the peasants are coming with pitchforks after ‘em.” – Patrick J. Buchanan, New Hampshire, February 18, 1996

In 1992 and again in 1996, political operative and commentator Pat Buchanan was the pugilistic standard-bearer for an older, more nationalistic (some argue nativist) conservative movement that would again cycle to prominence in the election of Donald J. Trump 20 years later.

Today’s punishing gasoline and diesel prices, more expensive groceries, high electricity bills and an increasingly unstable grid are rightly inciting the next wave in America’s peasant rebellion.

Democrats will pay a heavy price in November in large part because of a bankrupt energy policy built upon the big lie that petroleum is replaceable by wind and solar and efforts to end the U.S. oil and natural gas industry to benefit America’s rival dictators, sheiks and communists.

In July, President Biden will beg Saudi Arabia to increase oil supply while simultaneously threatening U.S. oil and natural gas companies with extinction. Meanwhile, Germany – a leader among Europe’s climate orthodoxies – is returning to coal power and beginning natural gas conservation efforts.

Europe’s new war is very much a war about energy supply.

On his first day in office, President Biden took action that jeopardized the nation’s energy future. Through executive order, he suspended leasing on federal lands, where our nation gets about 25% of its oil and natural gas. He canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, killing thousands of jobs and slowing the flow of North American crude to Gulf Coast refineries. He rejoined the disastrous Paris Agreement. America should have known what it was getting in 2020. Biden’s campaign documents were thick with costly, promised red tape designed to kill family-owned oil and gas businesses and large ones too.

The plan was simple: destroy oil and natural gas production in the U.S., drive up energy costs, and make the alternative energy sources he and his coastal elites adore more viable.

“Here’s the situation,” Biden said at a May 24 press conference. “And when it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”

Higher gasoline and diesel prices aren’t inflation, they’re “Bidenflation.” He’s the proverbial snake-oil salesman pressing his magic elixir of a green energy future onto the American people whether they want it or not. And they do not.

Gasoline and diesel will remain America’s most important transportation fuels for a very long time. Americans need affordable and reliable energy sources, and for more than a century, oil and natural gas have been the proven leaders in providing both. Thanks to the artificial energy scarcity created by Biden, his enablers and allies, we peasants are suffering.

—    Brook A. Simmons is President of The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma