It’s a tried-and-true Democrat trick to put forward disabled people. They love to use them to advance liberalism, treating their disabilities like armor. You can’t react, you can’t be critical, you can’t even disagree — that would be meanspirited. The left does this purposefully. It is as cynical and compassionless a political tactic as has ever been devised.

Trump doesn’t fall for it. Look, this isn’t some random troubled teen. She is a globetrotting celebrity crusader, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, who threatens, “We will make sure we put world leaders against the wall” if they don’t do what she wants on global warming.

Unlike 16-year-old Nick Sandmann, who can be attacked and destroyed by the mainstream media, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg must only be venerated. If you deviate from that, you are made to apologize. It’s a prime example of the politically correct speech codes the left is trying to enforce on everybody. And because Donald Trump refuses to comply, they are beside themselves. They can’t see straight.

The truth is, the Democrats’ obsession with impeachment had nothing to do with Ukraine. That was just the most convenient pretext they could reach for to conjure up some kind of case. They know Trump hasn’t violated the Constitution. What he has violated is their speech codes, their behavioral mandates, their ideas of what’s acceptable. And here’s what’s not acceptable to them: you can’t criticize them, you can’t make fun of them, you can’t disagree with them. And if you do, you’re bordering on criminality in their America, and they will come after you.

Donald Trump won’t submit. He won’t play their game by their rules. He doubles down and offends them even more. So they’re reduced to lying about him. They simply can’t abide Donald Trump, and they’re fed up to hell that you don’t agree with them. They cannot believe they can’t persuade you to join them in getting rid of the guy.

It’s time to go on offense. Your President is not guilty. Democrats don’t have a shred of evidence. They never have had a bit of evidence for any of the allegations they’ve made. I’m begging Republicans in the United States Senate: do not — do not — approach this defensively at all. It’s not hard to defend Donald Trump. You do it by staying on offense. Characterize this as what it is: bogus, unjustified, purely political, unwarranted, unmerited, and evidence-free.

I said this on the air, and on Fox News on 12/13/19, Sen. Mike Lee (R, UT) reacted: “[The plan] is to not go into this defensively at all, as Rush Limbaugh just suggested … We’re going to be very much on the offense, and we’re very optimistic about the outcome. Why? Because the President is on the side of truth and the law in this circumstance. He didn’t do anything wrong, and the American people are tired of this political manipulation that we’ve been seeing from the Democratic Party. They can’t win elections, and so they’re going after the President instead. The President is going to win, and he’s going to win in a big way.”

That is how you do it.

I can’t tell you the number of emails I get on those rare occasions when someone in Washington vigorously defends President Trump. I was inundated after Sen. Rand Paul (R, KY) praised the President at the Lexington Trump rally last November: “President Trump has great courage. He faces down the fake media every day,” thundered Paul. “But Congress needs to step up and have equal courage to defend the President!” Most of the messages I got were, “Rush! Rush! Did you see Rand Paul defend Trump? Oh, my God!” Outside of the handful of regulars who go on Fox, it happens so infrequently that everybody wanted to make sure I saw it. People are fed up that so few Republicans defend the President. I am beyond fed up, too.

It is not hard! Defending Donald Trump is part and parcel of fighting the corruption in the Democrat Party and on the left. And if Republican voices would swell in chorus, the Democrats and their accomplices in the media would not stand a chance.

This, to me, is as simple as two plus two equals four. Defending Donald Trump is defending us, defending ourselves, the people who voted for him. When Donald Trump is attacked, we are being attacked, folks. He’s the vessel for the hatred they have for us who elected him. Every Republican in D.C. ought to be in unison defending Donald Trump. Yet we’re constantly getting reports of unnamed Republicans “privately” peeved at having to defend him.

According to Breitbart, former Republican Congressman and NeverTrumper Charlie Dent told cnn on 11/28/19: “I think my former colleagues are in a situation where they understand their base pressure, the base has not yet bolted from the President. I think that’s why they’re standing with the President for the moment. But there’s no question, having spoken to many of them privately, they’re absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the President’s behavior.”

Another NeverTrumper, David Jolly, who resigned from Congress and renounced his membership in the Republican Party, told Vox on 12/6/19: “I can’t tell you how many Republican members of Congress have told me, ‘I’m just trying to keep my head down and not get noticed.’ They see all the excitement stirred up by people like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes but at least half the caucus wants to stay the hell out of the media. They’re not looking to make a name through this, they’re looking to survive this.”

Three years after Trump took office, somehow D.C. Republicans still don’t get it. They think that if they cower and keep their mouths shut they can escape the line of fire. They believe that as long as they stay silent, all the meanies trying to destroy Trump will magically leave them alone. In their dreams. Democrats are coming for every Republican in that town just as they are coming for Donald Trump.

Since 2016, I’ve been hearing a constant refrain: “Where are the Republicans?” Every day there’s an onslaught from the drive-bys and the Democrats, coordinated against whatever Republican happens to be effective at that moment. And there isn’t a unified defense — hell, there isn’t even a significant defense.

Sometimes I ask, why am I and others in conservative media the only ones defending Trump? Why are we the only ones pushing back against liberal lies? Sadly, since we have fulfilled that role, Republican politicians have basically ceded it to us. Far too often the conservative media are doing what elected Republicans ought to do but think they don’t have to because we’ve got it covered. What if we stopped? What if I said to hell with it, like most Republicans are apparently saying? It’s unthinkable. It’s cowardly not to defend this country against the onslaught by radical socialists trying to erase our Founding. How on earth can you not defend against that?

When you get right down to it, what we really face here is the United States government versus Donald Trump and his voters. Call it the Deep State, the administrative state, the ruling class, the Washington elites, the Swamp — it’s the government and everybody in that town versus Trump and his supporters — you and me. The entire apparatus of government has been attempting to outdo, overturn, and reverse the election results of 2016. What does that mean? Your vote doesn’t count. And they’re not giving up until they pull this off.

There’s one person doing everything to prevent them from succeeding: the guy who legitimately won the election. He’s trying to stop the onslaught of the Deep State crushing our republic under its heel, while at the same time Republicans who could put their shoulders to the wheel are scared of their own shadows. And every moment of every day we’re being gaslighted by messages from Democrats and the media that Donald Trump is the real problem in Washington!

The fact that so many Republicans don’t want to choose sides is beyond infuriating. They offer ridiculous excuses: “I can’t defend what the President said about x.” Or “I can’t defend his constantly saying ‘witch hunt.’” Or “I can’t defend his tweeting.” How absolutely trivial and insignificant, compared to the risk we face of the destruction of America as Founded!

Here’s an easy prediction: any gop politician too cowardly to step up and defend our President will have a short shelf life. People are clamoring for Trump to be vigorously and passionately defended because we know what’s at stake. Do not doubt me.

Cartoon ©2020 by permission of A.F. Branco and Creators Syndicate, Inc.