One way the Democrats could fulfill their dream of crippling President Trump (as opposed to simply running him out of office) would be to stampede the Republicans, to send them running wild-eyed for shelter from shouted accusations and piercing rays of adverse publicity. There is no shortage of weak-spined GOP officeholders, and it has happened many times before. The Dems had no reason to doubt that it would happen again.

But it's not happening. Apart from the usual suspects such as Mitt Romney (Romney as Massachusetts governor was the sole politician to hold out against the Bulger brothers, but that was a long time ago), the GOP wall is holding firm, with no defector or weak sister of any significance.

One example can be found in the confrontation between Indiana congressman Jim Banks and NPR's Michel Martin this past Wednesday. Martin was fulfilling NPR's unwritten charter of putting the wildest fringe leftist thinking into comfortable terms to make it acceptable to the denizens of the suburbs. Banks, a freshman representative who saw service in Afghanistan, wasn't having any.

Martin was attempting to put across the accepted narrative about the Trump/Zelensky call — that Trump asked the Ukrainian president for dirt on Biden as a "favor," that he immediately turned the conversation to Hunter Biden, that there was a "quid pro quo," and so on, all backed up by her claim that she had the transcript "in front of her."

Banks immediately cut to the chase on that, shutting down Martin with a single line: "... read the part of the transcript that would indict the president on high crimes and misdemeanors."

Of course, Martin could do no such thing, and despite some further word games, that was the end of it, leaving myriads of NPR listeners clutching their worry beads in shock and alarm.

Along with Elise Stefanik's bold defiance of the House Democratic elite, this is a serious indication that a new GOP is pecking its way out of the shell. Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, relentlessly hammered Chairman Adam Schiff over the lies and inconsistencies regarding the "whistleblower," ending with a demand that "he should immediately step down as chair."

This is not your grandfather's — or even your uncle's — GOP. For generations, the GOP has accepted the role of the battered wife of American politics, cheated, beaten, and manipulated repeatedly with no response whatsoever. In fact, party officials — along with conservative spokesmen — have gone so far as to claim this as a virtue, in that being constantly humiliated in public was somehow keeping traditional values alive.

This, along with much else, has ended with Donald Trump. Trump has clearly demonstrated that the only way to answer a belligerent, hostile Left is to go blow for blow with leftists. He has continued this round after round and shows no sign whatsoever of backing off. (His current campaign commercial states flat out: "No more Mr. Nice Guy.")

It appears that the younger GOP pols have been paying close attention. So along with his other accomplishments, President Trump has presented us with a clean new deck of cards at the political table. It's about time.