There’s nothing more consistent in national politics than the clockwork-like inconsistency of Republican budget deficit alarmism: They scream about the deficit when a Democrat occupies the White House, and go quiet when a Republican does.

After inheriting surpluses from President Bill Clinton in 2001, the GOP spent eight years not paying for new spending (on wars and a prescription drug benefit for seniors) while reducing taxes dramatically and in regressive fashion. When Republicans’ disastrous regime culminated in a crippling financial crisis, the structural deficits they had created mushroomed into the trillion-dollar-a-year range, after which they handed control of the government to Democrats and magically rediscovered the virtues of miserliness.

Now that they are on the cusp of reclaiming control of the presidency, Republicans are readying a quick return to the spendthrift days of the George W. Bush administration, but when a Democrat is next elected president, they will toggle right back to austerity politics without bothering to justify the obvious lack of underlying principle.

The cynicism is both familiar and breathtaking, but it isn’t reserved for fiscal policy alone.

Donald Trump’s unexpected election, and the GOP’s ensuing preparations to assume full control of the government, show that something similar is true of the party’s attitude toward public corruption. In deed if not word, Republicans are demonstrating that they regard both deficits and graft as vices to be enjoyed during periods of GOP rule, then become hypocritically outraged about from the wilderness.