The French philosopher and literary critic René Girard held that such scapegoating and ritual sacrifice is an essential part of group identity and solidarity. That seems to apply here. Mr. Trump ran against American elites and their insular culture. Their response was to load onto him all of the sins they see in American society and attempt to sacrifice him to appease their gods.

Mr. Girard asked a question that is pertinent today: “Why is our own participation in scapegoating so difficult to perceive and the participation of others so easy? To us, our fears and prejudices never appear as such because they determine our vision of people we despise, we fear, and against whom we discriminate.”

But the ritual sacrifice of Donald Trump didn’t work — at least not in the sense of removing him from office. It certainly did have the effect of catalyzing and uniting his opponents. Still, one of the many ironies here is that the Trump-hating media has handed him an incredibly powerful weapon for the 2020 campaign, one that may ensure his re-election.

Again, the operating principle was that of the zealot: Believe the narrative regardless of the lack of evidence, squint to see justifications where there are none and then in an intoxicated frenzy of moral superiority use any weapon at hand to destroy your enemy.

Shortly after Mr. Mueller concluded his investigation without any indictments related to Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, Representative Adam Schiff, now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not admit he was wrong — far from it. He brazenly doubled down, saying during a committee hearing, “You may think it’s O.K. how Trump and his associates interacted with Russians during the campaign. I don’t. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And yes, I think it’s corrupt.”

The problem is that the Mueller investigation, as Mr. Barr explained, “did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

Mr. Schiff must know this. He must have known it for a long time. But he has persisted in slandering innocent people for personal political gain. His selfishness has led to a level of civil discord and political acrimony not seen since the late 1960s. That is what I call immoral, unethical, unpatriotic and yes, corrupt.