In the months before the midterms, the GOP began sounding the alarm that the Democrats, should they take back the House, were planning a slew of investigations into nearly every aspect of the Trump administration: tax returns, family businesses, Russia, Stormy Daniels, excessive spending by cabinet secretaries, the travel ban, family separation, the failure to adequately respond to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico—and much, much more. In August, Republican leaders and donors began circulating a spreadsheet that listed each potential investigation, over a hundred in all. It was, as Jonathan Swan of Axios wrote, enough to “churn Republican stomachs”—a secret study of the “coming hell” that would “turn the Trump White House into a 24/7 legal defense operation.” The document was packaged as merely informational, but its larger message was obvious. Democrats, it implied, were vindictive and out of control, driven less by truth than by revenge fantasies and conspiracy theories.

There is a difference, though, between conspiracy theory and conspiracy. The latter is a crime—difficult to prove, but nonetheless real. American political history is laden with them; Watergate and Iran-Contra are only the most brazen of recent conspiracies. Conspiracy theories, meanwhile, string unconnected scandals together into an increasingly implausible master narrative orchestrated by a single puppet master. They connect dots that don’t warrant connecting. In September, for example, during the height of the battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, some liberals wondered on Twitter whether Kavanaugh’s unexplained debts—as much as $200,000—held secrets related to the Russia investigation. “Mueller should subpoena Kavanaugh to find out whether Trump arranged for one of Putin’s pals to bail Kavanaugh out of his baseball debt,” offered one Twitter user, @zibilith. Two weeks later, Greg Olear, author of Dirty Rubles: An Introduction to Trump/Russia, tweeted about Kavanaugh’s “owned-by-Putin behind.” By this logic, a handful of unrelated crimes are transformed into a Grand Unified Theory of Political Malfeasance.

Is this the new normal on the left? It’s possible, but conspiracy theories are unlikely to take hold of the Democratic Party, especially a newly empowered House majority. Conspiracy theories are, generally speaking, a favored coping mechanism of those who lack power: They flourished among liberals in the wake of Trump’s election. But as Democrats regain power, expect their need for conspiracy theories to decrease.

It’s far more likely that Democrats will simply start uncovering actual crimes: conspiracies and collusion, both big and small, coordinated and random—along with a host of regular old acts of corruption and graft. Given the preponderance of evidence indicating such transgressions, there is little need for Democrats to promote conspiracy theories. They have more than enough legitimate work to keep their oversight committees busy until 2020 and beyond. The real question is whether they will let themselves be played by the Republican Party, which has descended almost entirely into paranoia.

Conspiracy theories have been integral to American politics since nearly the country’s founding, from rumors of an Illuminati takeover in the election of 1800, through the various populist movements that relied on anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic sentiments. Major historical events, from Pearl Harbor to JFK’s assassination, have always been fodder for conspiratorial accusations.