They justify it with daily new conspiracy theories amplified by Fox News. They even stormed a secure room in the Capitol to mislead the public into thinking these hearings are totally one-sided — when in fact both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and lawyers from the relevant committees are doing the questioning.

In attacking all the diplomats, intelligence officers and civil servants who have stepped forward, at great professional risk, to bear witness against Trump, they are attacking the people who uphold the regulations — and provide the independent research and facts — that make our government legitimate and the envy of people all over the world, where many people have to bribe government workers for service.

And, finally, there’s the internet barons who for too long ignored the weaponization of social media, which is turning our free press into a house of mirrors, where citizens can no longer cognitively discern fact from fiction and make informed judgments essential for democracy.

I watch it all and wonder: “Are you really doing that? Do you all go home at night to some offshore island where the long-term damage you’re doing to America doesn’t matter?”

And what’s even more frightening is that there are now so many incentives in place in media and politics — from gerrymandering to unlimited campaign contributions to data systems that can ever more perfectly define us, divide us and subdivide us — to ensure that these people will keep on hammering our system until they smash it to pieces.

Look at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was questioned last Wednesday at a House hearing by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A.O.C. was trying to grasp why Zuckerberg thinks it’s O.K. for politicians to run political ads that contain obvious lies, as the Trump campaign has already done in a Facebook ad about Biden viewed by some five million Facebook users.

This is all about money for Zuckerberg, but he disguises his motives in some half-baked theory about freedom of the press — so half-baked that he couldn’t explain it even when he knew he would be asked about it by a congressional committee. Read it and weep:

A.O.C.: “Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal?”