Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) isn’t right often, but she was about this: moving forward with impeachment does put her party “in a new direction.” To where, no one knows. But this we do know: Democrats have chosen their path — and inevitably, someone will pay for it. The odds that that “someone” will be Donald Trump, however, look more improbable by the day.

Forty-eight hours into this short-sighted mission, Democrats have to be sweating bullets. Not only did the president release the transcript (which even liberals like Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, called uncompelling), but even her own caucus is starting to think Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a fatal mistake. “When you impeach somebody, it has to be for a really strong reason,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-N.J.) insisted. This, he went on, doesn’t do anything but “disenfranchis[e]” voters, who, he argues, are the ones who should be doing the impeaching in the first place — at the ballot box.

And Democrats weren’t the only exasperated ones. Republicans wasted no time pointing out that Pelosi was the first member in the history of the country to launch an impeachment investigation without first holding a vote in the House. To Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), that’s one of the most revealing aspects of this whole story — the unilateral way liberals are pursuing impeachment. “Now, she is the speaker of the House,” McCarthy told me on “Washington Watch,” “but she’s not the voice of America — the voice of the constituents across this country. They lend their power [and their voice] to their representative for every two years. She just took that all away. There should be a vote on the floor.” But putting her members on the record would mean voters could hold them accountable. And that’s the last thing Pelosi wants.

“There are so many problems out there that we could be solving,” McCarthy lamented. “But the Democrats are focused on one thing — their hatred of the president.” If the Left is wondering how their obsession is playing in mainstream America, the National Republican Congressional Committee has a clue. Tuesday, the group tweeted their thanks to Speaker Pelosi “and de facto Speaker AOC” after a 608 percent spike in online fundraising. If Democrats weren’t worried about their political vulnerability before, they have reason to be.

The Ukrainian call may not be an open and closed case, but as far as Leader McCarthy is concerned, “…[N]othing in that transcript is impeachable.” But, he warns, the Democrats “don’t care about the facts.” And either way, those facts are being lost in the noise of a relentless media, desperate to drive their anti-Trump agenda. They’re throwing everything at the wall, hoping something — anything — will stick. Why? Because they’ll do anything to distract the country from all the good this president has done. “We’ve made some fantastic deals…” Trump said. “We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had… and that doesn’t get covered because you [the media] waste your time on nonsense. It’s very sad what Democrats are doing to this country — they’re dividing, they’re demeaning.”

The hope is simple: that conservatives, and evangelicals in particular, will eventually be worn down by this onslaught and disengage. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the constant political noise and distraction from what really matters. But there’s a reason the Left is obsessed with destroying Donald Trump — and it’s the same reason we cannot grow weary in our calling: the president’s policies. This is the first president to follow through on driving a conservative agenda into the heart of the Left. For years, the best we could hope for from the GOP was a party that pushed pause on the Democrats’ radicalism. Not this president. He’s hitting rewind, rolling back some of the worst forms of extremism this country has ever seen. Look at what he did this week alone — rallying other nations to fight against religious persecution and for the unborn.

Those gains are possible because committed Christians understand that this administration is not about a man, it’s about a mandate. It’s about saving lives and ending abortion. It’s about protecting the family unit and stopping the propaganda that’s hurting our children. It’s about the ability to live out our faith at work — and judges who uphold the Constitution. The spiritual battle raging against this president is not about him — it’s about what he’s doing. The Left’s strategy is to wear us out — but we can’t let them. There’s too much at stake. Years from now, generations of young people will live to tell us: it was worth the battle to stay in the fight.

Originally published here.

Chicago Tells Preachers to Park It

Millions of people walk through Chicago’s Millennium Park every year, but only four of them seemed to catch the city’s attention. They were students from Wheaton College, Christians who decided to spread the gospel at one of the biggest tourist attractions in America. It never occurred to these undergrads that they wouldn’t be allowed to speak about their faith in public. So now, months later, they’re in court — sharing the good news of the First Amendment with a city that desperately needs it.

“We’re passing out gospel tracts,” sophomore Matt Swart explained to listeners on “Washington Watch” Wednesday. “[It was just] a simple three-fold pamphlet with information about the gospel — that sinners can be reconciled to God with faith in Jesus Christ and repentance. [We were] passing those out to anyone who would take it and having conversations when we were approached.” That is, until the park’s security team saw what was happening and stopped them, explaining that they couldn’t preach or hand out religious literature.

“I thought was a little strange,” Matt says. “We went out to the front sidewalk and sat there for a minute until Kate and one of my fellow plaintiffs decided: this is wrong. They can’t do this.” So, some of them went back out and started evangelizing. Security stopped them again. Week after week, they went back, but “continued to face hostility and opposition from park employees.” Incredibly, at least one official said they couldn’t talk about their religion in public. They went back to campus, Matt remembers, and it just didn’t sit right. They reached out to a law professor at school, and he agreed: they absolutely had the constitutional right to street preach.

So together, the students agreed — they would fight. They connected with a religious freedom law firm called Mauck & Baker and started knocking on the doors of park management. “We went back and forth with the city for a while, asking them to change their rules.” Well, they changed their rules all right. They decided, in an absurd new policy, to divide the park into 11 imaginary rooms. And, give Chicago points for creativity — only one of those “rooms” allowed open conversations about faith. “It’s a public park!” Matt’s attorney John Mauck said incredulously! “It’s open — the sun shines. It rains, there’s grass, people are walking, people are chatting, people are picnicking. That’s not rooms.” That, Matt and John explained, was the final straw. They tried to change the rules civilly. They sent letters and had meetings. Ultimately, the only option was to take the city to court.

“There’s an important spiritual point here,” John said. “The Lord tells us to make every effort to live at peace with all men — so far it depends on you. And it also says, ‘Don’t go to court, settle quickly on your way to court.’ So we have tried both of those. And we always do that because we want to be peacemakers. But when it comes down to the bottom line, [which is] ‘You can’t preach the gospel, I’m sorry. We’ve amended the rules again, and now it’s prohibited in all these spaces. And like you say, Sarah, it is a huge tourist attraction. So people from all over the world are going there — and it’s the perfect place to share the love of Jesus.”

In the end, he pointed out, there was more at stake than just four Christians in a park. This was about protecting evangelism in America and saving souls. “We need to protect civil liberties vigorously so we don’t get into a situation like they have in Hong Kong where the rights are gradually taken away and then you have civil unrest,” he pointed out. “We want to hold the line here for the gospel and for everybody else.”

This story, like many others, is about so much more than just four students at a park. It’s about our constitutional freedoms — and, most importantly, our ability to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve heard pastors and other Christian leaders say they don’t want to get involved in “politics” because they just want to preach the gospel. I think we are seeing what happens when we neglect our responsibility as Christians to be involved in “politics.” We lose our ability to share the gospel. Thank goodness for brave young people, who God is able to work through to accomplish things for His kingdom. Hear from some of them at this year’s Values Voter Summit at a special panel of college students called “No Fear: Real Stories from a Generation Standing for Truth.”

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.