Last Thursday afternoon, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was handed a small index card, peered through his glasses while reading its contents, and set it aside.

“The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted,” Roberts said.

It was the second time Senator Rand Paul had submitted a similar question to the Chief Justice, who was presiding over the question-and-answer portion of the Senate trial to remove President Donald Trump. Paul was hoping Roberts was like Ron Burgundy reading from a teleprompter – that he would read aloud, on television, anything put before him.

In this case, Paul was trying to get Roberts to read the name of the intelligence-based whistleblower whose report of Trump trading military aid to Ukraine in exchange for domestic campaign assistance started the whole impeachment imbroglio. On Wednesday, Roberts had said he would not “out” the whistleblower. But Paul tried again Thursday.

Of course, by that point, the identity and motives of the whistleblower were completely irrelevant to determining Trump’s guilt. The whistleblower could be Michael Moore disguised as a tray of cold cuts in a CIA conference room and it wouldn’t change the facts of the case.

No, the only reason to announce the name of the whistleblower would be to exact vengeance for the temerity he or she demonstrated in reporting Trump’s wrongdoing. The message is clear: Do the right thing, and you will pay for it.

Other Senators followed Paul’s lead in filling Justice Roberts’ mouth with a bouillabaisse of nonsense. Subsequent index cards were sent to Roberts containing statements rather than questions, accusing former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter of corruption.

This, too, is a distraction – if anything, Joe Biden was trying to root out corruption. As Vice President, Biden actively sought to remove Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin from his position investigating the oil and natural gas company Burisma, on whose board his son sat. Biden believed Shokin was ineffective at fighting corruption – a position held by many U.S. allies at the time.

The reward for Biden’s trouble? Being smeared in an impeachment trial that has nothing to do with him.

No matter how pure one’s motives, simply crossing Trump is enough to earn you social media humiliation, or even worse, a meeting in a tiny room where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yells at you to point at an unmarked map.

Ironically, Trump and his allies’ strategy of trying to drag people for doing the right thing is borrowed straight from the Wokeness Blueprint, where cabals of the theatrically aggrieved take to social media to condemn the insufficiently pure.

On Thursday, tech billionaire Jack Ma donated $14.5 million to help develop a vaccine for coronavirus, which has killed at least 170 people and sickened over 7,700. Website Gizmodo snarkily condemned Ma, pointing out that the donation amounted to an equivalent of about $33 for the average U.S. family.

The website also rapped Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos for recently donating $690,000 to fight the out-of-control wildfires in Australia, noting that the contribution was less than a dollar when compared to the average American income.

“How generous, coming from a guy who says he doesn’t know how to spend his money,” Gizmodo cracked.

Naturally, there would be one way for both Bezos and Ma to avoid the scorn heaped on them by social media warriors: Don’t give any money at all. You’re better off staying quiet and avoiding the risk to your business. The social media axe never swings in the direction of those who decline to present their necks.

Earlier in the week, actor and sporadic cartoon giraffe David Schwimmer waded into the political correctness thorn bush wearing only his underwear. In an effort to preach the values of diversity and condemn his “privilege as a heterosexual white male,” Schwimmer suggested there should be an “all black” or “all Asian” version of his hit show “Friends.”

Woke TV enthusiasts quickly reminded Schwimmer of the presence of the show “Living Single,” which featured six African-American actors and predated “Friends” by a full year.

“Apparently, David Schwimmer has no idea he was on a white reboot of ‘Living Single,’” tweeted Michael Harriot of The Root. Schwimmer quickly tweeted a response to the criticism he had received, saying me meant “no disrespect” to the show.

Also playing The Game That Can’t Be Won is presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who on Wednesday tweeted that we need a president “whose vision was shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington politics we’ve come to know and expect.”

That brought a quick response from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Ava Duvernay, who questioned whether Buttigieg had the right people in mind.

“Respectfully, where is the American Heartland located exactly in your mind as you write this tweet?,” Duvernay wrote. “Does it include Compton and other places like it? Because us folks from those places would like a president shaped by our vision too. Serious question. Would love an answer.”

This week also saw the cancellation of the much-anticipated book “American Dirt,” which promised to take an uncompromising look at the plight of Mexican immigrants at America’s border. The problem? The book’s author, Jeanine Cummins, is white.

This week, Flatiron books, canceled 13 remaining book tour stops to allegedly ensure Cummins’ safety. Hispanic groups outraged over “cultural appropriation” have objected to Cummins’ book, raising questions of whether a white woman should be allowed to share the experiences of Mexican immigrants.

Every one of these examples features a person staking out an upstanding, moral position and paying a price for it. If you think you can sate the mob, think again – the more you feed the Scylla and Charbidis of outrage and piety, the hungrier they get.

This even applies to dead people who can’t defend themselves. As the helicopter crash that tragically killed basketball star Kobe Bryant and eight others on Sunday still smoldered, a Washington Post reporter tweeted a story pertaining to the sexual assault lawsuit Bryant had settled in 2003.

By all accounts, Bryant had turned his life around and became a dedicated husband and father, devout Catholic, and successful businessman. But to some, none of this mattered – no matter how much he good he did in the ensuing years, he would always be known primarily for the worst thing he ever did.

Whether it’s a government whistleblower, a politician seeking racial justice, or an author wanting to bring attention to a moral cause, the lesson is written in neon letters: Don’t even try.

Whether Republican or Democrat, the purity police is coming for you. Your good deeds cannot purchase you a place in the good graces of the moral gatekeepers – that is solely their bailiwick.

And the consequence to our culture will be obvious: Nobody will miss the opportunity to do nothing.

(IMAGE: YouTube)