Nearly two years ago, the British people voted for Brexit. They rejected the arguments of the political, business, academic and media establishment, which were united in their support for the European Union and its elitist agenda that favors the rich. Instead, voters chose populism, voting for Britain to become a self-governing, independent nation outside the EU.

You can say they were wrong; you can lament their decision. But you can’t deny the facts of what happened.

But guess what? Denying the facts is exactly what the elitists are trying to do.

Right now, the political debate in the United Kingdom is about whether, after Brexit, the UK should ... kinda, sorta, stay in the EU really. Or whether in fact there needs to be a second referendum. Because, you know, the people got it wrong the first time.

Well, I suppose the Brits should be thankful for small mercies. At least in the UK they’re talking about a second vote.

Nothing so democratic is happening in the equivalent situation here in America, as the establishment seeks to overturn the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. But how can that happen? In the U.S., the chosen path to remove President Trump from office has become the Russia probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and its tabloid offshoot, the Stormy Daniels imbroglio.

The elitists in Washington (including – frighteningly – current and former leadership in our law enforcement and security bureaucracy) are monumentally aggrieved that the people had the temerity to elect a populist outsider to the White House. And they’re not prepared to wait for the 2020 election to try to replace populist Donald Trump.

That’s why this week I described the Mueller probe as a political counter-revolution.

Think back to the investigation’s origins. It was set up after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and told NBC’s Lester Holt that it was because of the “Russia thing.”

Yes – it was because of the “Russia thing;” not because there’s any basis to the “Russia thing” but precisely because there isn’t – and because Comey refused to say that.

Where did the “Russia thing” itself begin? The Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Clinton campaign paid for the dodgy dossier that tried to smear the Trump campaign for supposedly colluding with Russia to win the election. When that didn’t work – Clinton lost the election anyway – her supporters jumped on the “Russia thing” as the reason for her defeat.

You can imagine the supporters all saying: How could she possibly lose to him? There had to be foul play!

Because, of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that Clinton lost the election on the merits – that working Americans were sick of the policy failures of the establishment and wanted a change from the disastrous elitism of the last few decades.

No – of course that couldn’t be true. It had to be the “Russia thing.” Anything else was too awful to contemplate.

And so in the days and weeks after the election – after the shell-shocked Democrats and their elitist allies in New York and Washington picked themselves off the floor – the drumbeat of the “Russia thing” got louder and louder.

The FBI investigation that was prompted by the Democrats’ dodgy dossier became public. The establishment, as intended, jumped on that too, embracing the belief that “the Russians did it!”

The “Russia thing” took over all political debate and became a huge distraction to the new Trump administration. The president wanted it to go away – hence the request to Comey to confirm publicly that President Trump wasn’t under investigation. And then when Comey wouldn’t do that he was fired. Which led to Mueller.

What’s the point of going over all this ancient history? To remind ourselves that the origin of the “Russia thing” – at least the part that relates to President Trump - was 100 percent political.

And that’s how we need to see it today. The Mueller probe is political warfare through legal means – not surprising when you consider that the Democrats are the party of lawyers, funded by lawyers.

When James Comey, in an extraordinarily partisan remark even for him, said this week that he thought Hillary Clinton believed in the rule of law, what he really meant was that she – like him – believes in the rule of lawyers. Like them.

They don’t care how their political counter-revolution gets President Trump out – whether it’s proving the original, fabricated claim about collusion; or by some legal process misstep by the president and his team; or by something to do with Stormy Daniels. As long as it gets President Trump out of the Oval Office before 2020, it’s fine with the counter-revolutionaries.

But this all-out effort by the establishment to remove a president who was legitimately elected according to the Constitution is doing terrible damage to the United States. Not just because it’s such a massive distraction from the bold policymaking that’s needed to help address the very real problems in our economy, in our society – inadequate skills and family breakdown to name just two. But because it undermines democracy and the rule of law.

How do you think people will feel if they vote for an outsider – and the insiders just turn around and say: “Sorry, you got it wrong. You can’t do that.”

In a nutshell, that’s what the Mueller investigation is all about.

Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo, recounting his own (and his family’s) ordeal at Mueller’s hands this week, put it well when he said:

“I think they want to destroy the president, they want to destroy his family. They want to destroy his businesses. They want to destroy his friends so that no billionaire in let’s say 50 years wakes up and tells his wife, ‘You know this country is broken and only I can fix it.’ His wife will say, ‘Are you crazy? Did you see what happened to Trump and everybody around him?’ That’s what this is about.”

Caputo is absolutely right. And that’s why this political counter-revolution must be confronted and defeated – in the name of democracy and the rule of law.

We’ll be debating all this with my guests, including Katrina Pierson, senior adviser for Trump 2020, this Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT on “The Next Revolution” on Fox News Channel – hope you can join us!