Let me relate a bit of football history trivia.

Back in 1905, football was becoming wildly popular across the nation, attracting tens of thousands of fans to games. But it was a violent sport, with 18 young players killed during that year. So, encouraged by President Roosevelt, 62 representatives met to establish rules to make the game safer. They banned some moves (such as the "flying wedge," a mass formation that often caused serious injury) and made other moves legal – including a newfangled maneuver called the forward pass.

This little-known football tactic took some time to adopt. "Because of these rules and the fact coaches at that time thought the forward pass was a sissified type of play that wasn't really football, they were hesitant to adopt this new strategy," noted football historian Kent Stephens. But the move was enthusiastically embraced by an underdog team that soon soared to victory after jaw-dropping wins over befuddled opponents who hardly knew what hit them.

I know less than nothing about football, but one thing is clear from this story: the forward pass was a classic game-changer. To keep up, opposing teams had to think up legal counter-moves – and fast. Innovation entered the game. Football would never be the same.

We are seeing exactly the same thing in our current presidential administration.

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Trump is a game-changer. Seldom, if ever before, has a president thrown aside the fossilized routines and behavior of previous leaders and done things his way. It's no accident Frank Sinatra's classic song "My Way" was chosen for Trump's first dance at the inaugural ball.

Liberals are so determined to trash Trump, so desperate to bring him down, so frantic to discredit him, that they haven't realized the man is a game-changer of epic proportions. They simply don't know what to make of him, how to break him, or how to neutralize his administration. It's endlessly vexing that Trump has chosen the shocking path of not only keeping his campaign promises, but doing so strictly within the bounds of the Constitution (the nerve!). You can almost hear the progressives and the mainstream media gnashing their collective teeth with frustration.

The traditional (fossilized?) techniques of bringing down a political figure aren't working with Trump. Since he isn't a career politician, he simply doesn't care what they say or do, and barges ahead on his own terms.

During the election, it drove the left nuts when Trump routinely attracted tens of thousands of cheering supporters. As recently as a month ago, people were patiently standing in a line three miles long to hear him speak. By contrast, last September when Trump had 8,000 people attend a rally with thousands more turned away for lack of room, on the same day Hillary Clinton drew less than 200.

Yet the mainstream media were shocked – shocked! – when Trump won the election. They didn't understand his appeal. They didn't understand that Americans are sick and tired of politicians encouraging bureaucracy to the nth degree while engaging in the vilest corruption. They didn't "get" that he's a game-changer.

You see, most people are attracted to politics for the power, influence and riches it brings. Many spend their careers engaging in nefarious and/or shady behavior and then doing whatever it takes to elude oversight. So when Trump refused to release his tax records, claiming during the election it was because he was involved in an ongoing IRS audit, his opponents intimated it was because he was lying and had something to hide. That's why Rachel Maddow made such a yuuuuge deal out of showcasing Trump's 2005 tax return this week. (A 12-year-old partial tax return. Which the White House had already released. And on which the Wall Street Journal had already reported a year ago. But I digress.)

To put it mildly, Maddow ended up with egg on her face. Not only had Trump paid his taxes (25 percent), but he paid more than MSNBC Comcast (24 percent), and paid much more than Obama (19 percent) and Bernie (13 percent), causing some to quip, "Why won't Rachel Maddow release Donald Trump's tax returns? What's she hiding?"

See? Game-changer.

Trump delights in toying with the media, leaving them sputtering in outrage because they can't handle someone smart enough to run circles around them. During a press conference in which Trump lashed at the "fake news" press, Rush Limbaugh chuckled at the reporters' reactions: "I've never seen this before; this is great. I've never seen this before."

Game-changer.

Even more frustrating for the press, people are recognizing the amount of backroom "mopery and dopery" behind the mainstream media's fictitious neutral "just the facts" façade of professionalism. And now – shocking, I know – the Internet is available to almost everyone, so people no longer have to depend on the MSM for their news. Unable to come up with enough real-life scandals about Trump, some news organizations are flat-out making stuff up. And they wonder why their ratings are tanking? Half the reason behind Trump's popularity is he's poking the hostile press in the eye.

And the left is panicking. The leadership of the Democrats (and Republicans, for that matter) are fossilized and incapable of coming up with new ideas and new ways to fight their opponents. Because the use of invectives and rhetoric and accusations of "isms" are no longer effective, they're getting bolder in calling for violence. Unlike football, the "counter-moves" the left are adopting are often far from legal. They've worked outside the law for so long that – apparently – they're having a hard time coming up with legal maneuvers. Instead they're resorting to thuggery: beatings, arson, vandalism and other tactics that had, formerly, been effective at intimidating the opposition. As Michael Savage mentioned after he was attacked by a leftist outside a restaurant, it's open season on Trump supporters.

But it's not working. The citizenry, who for so long has suffered under the unconstitutional whims of progressives, now have a champion at their backs.

Don't you get it, folks? Donald Trump is a game-changer. Love him or hate him, he's approaching the presidency not as a politician, but as the CEO of a corporation. The old maneuvers don't work with him, something the progressive politicians and media still haven't figured out. They may, eventually, because evil never rests.

But until they do, Trump will keep scoring touchdowns. And unlike football, it's we the people who are winning.

Bigly.

Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact [email protected].

