Even mediocre politicians are clever enough, at some primal level, to learn from what other politicians do. They can see what others got away with and what they couldn't. They may not be smart enough to see the openings themselves, but once others have shown them the loopholes and the pressure points, they learn to exploit them. All the while, the public develops a stomach for these maneuvers. It's happening now.

Every once in a while, we get another sign that even if Donald Trump's assault on the American republic is foiled—which hardly looks more likely after the events of this morning—he will not be the last authoritarian the Republican Party produces. His allies are all adopting his rhetoric of Us and Them and and Deep State conspiracies, and the notion there is some volk—Real America, made up of Real Americans—that is under assault by the globalist elites of the coasts. They have watched his destruction of the separation of powers and the rule of law with undoubted interest, and noted his success.

Earlier in the morning, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats announced articles of impeachment into Donald Trump and their support for his new trade agreement. Tom Williams Getty Images

But most of all, they've realized that they, too, can say anything they want, over and over, until it becomes true. When there's an entire media ecosystem built to back up your claims—one organ of which, just today, started peddling the accusation that Bernie Sanders, a Jewish man, has problems with anti-Semitism—the truth is whatever you can get enough people to believe.

The latest example of this came from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the archetypal mediocre politician, and Minority Whip Steve Scalise. They held a press conference following the Democrats' announcement they were filing articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, American president. The House Republican leadership demonstrated therein that there's plenty they've learned from Trump over the last few years.

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Here's Steve Scalise's suggesting that the US intelligence community's conclusion about Russia interfering in the 2016 election is false: "The only collusion that happened where Russia tried to interfere in our election was when Barack Obama was president." pic.twitter.com/XXrf7KoPrQ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

Here, Scalise suggests:

House Democrats have pushed forward with impeachment "regardless of the facts" (in fact, there is a huge volume of evidence that Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress's inquiry into it).

The Mueller Report exonerated Trump (in fact, it detailed numerous incidents where he attempted to obstruct justice).

Obama and Biden are somehow responsible for the Russian hack of the 2016 elections (in fact, Republicans, chiefly Mitch McConnell, blocked a bipartisan statement before Election Day publicly condemning Russia's intervention, but did release a statement that declared, in part, their opposition to additional federal efforts to secure election infrastructure).

And this is just the start.

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Scalise ludicrously accuses Schiff of "spying on journalists" by obtaining Lev Parnas's phone records pic.twitter.com/9RouK56XQe — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

Here, Scalise claims:

Impeachment is an attempt to reverse the results of the last election (this is an argument against impeachment as a concept; only presidents who have won an election—at least for now—could engage in conduct worthy of impeachment).

This was all no big deal because Ukrainian President Zelensky did not do the investigations Trump demanded and got the military aid (he was set to announce the investigations on CNN before Trump got caught, a development which also prompted Trump to release the money).

Zelensky says there was no extortion (because Ukraine is still vitally dependent on the U.S. for more aid, and he knows Trump could get reelected, so he cannot challenge him publicly).

Adam Schiff subpoenaed journalists' phone records (House Democrats subpoenaed the records for people involved in the investigation: Rudy Giuliani and his now-indicted associate, Lev Parnas. Those logs included their contacts with John Solomon, whose reporting at The Hill was some of the basis for Giuliani's propaganda about Ukraine. They also showed Parnas was in contact with Devin Nunes, the Republican ranking member of the Intelligence Committee who sat through the hearings without saying a word about his connection to the people under investigation.)

Then McCarthy was up.

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Kevin McCarthy is out here brazenly lying about what the IG report says. (It does not say the FBI "spied on" the Trump campaign.) pic.twitter.com/iVbdRZeE6R — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

Here, McCarthy:

Then things really went off the deep end:

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This is just disgraceful, shameless lying from @GOPLeader pic.twitter.com/wtvP8NGlFb — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

The Republican playacting about FISA courts—which are a real systemic issue around civil liberties they never gave a damn about before 10 minutes ago—is truly something to behold. Absolutely shameless. Meanwhile, the IG report found the Justice Department followed the FISA procedures, flawed as they may be. We can all safely expect Republicans to introduce legislation that will remedy these FISA abuses. It's never just bad-faith rhetoric.

Then McCarthy, who once happily admitted on national television that Republicans engaged in the Benghazi farce to bring down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, went on a rant about the sacred role of Congress, and The American Idea, and how if we impeach our lawless president, we're letting down the protesters in Hong Kong.

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Kevin McCarthy refuses to answer a question about whether he agrees with Trump that a call in which he asked a foreign govt to investigate his political rival was "perfect," instead rants about the whistleblower pic.twitter.com/aSJOM6zmdm — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

Apparently, this is worse for the protesters than Trump's declared allegiance to authoritarian Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But the kicker, at least for followers of Democratic strategy, came when McCarthy was asked about the USMCA with which Democrats just agreed to go forward.

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Instead of praising Pelosi for moving forward with USMCA, McCarthy trashes her, says she intentionally waited on it as long as possible to weaken the economy ahead of the 2020 election pic.twitter.com/dHhdOIXYeO — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2019

And here is where the rubber really meets the road in terms of where this country is headed. The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives just thoroughly demonstrated not just that they will they say or do anything, without shame, in full knowledge that there will be zero consequences because of the polarized media and political environment we now inhabit. They also showed they have no reason to grant that the Democrats did anything good, at all, ever.

Even if Democrats pass Trump's trade agreement, he and his allies will slam them as Do Nothing Democrats all the same. You begin to wonder what the Democrats are getting out of it when they give Trump perhaps his biggest domestic policy win yet, whether or not it substantially improves workers' lives in practice. Either way, Trump will go gallivanting through Michigan and Pennsylvania saying it's 100 times better than NAFTA, and that only he could do it, and he had to drag the sniveling Democrats—who only care about impeachment, a disgrace!—with him. You can see the rallies now. It's hard to imagine any signs that read, "Nancy Pelosi: She Helped Improve the Agreement!" And in the end, how many swing voters will credit Democrats at all? How many House seats will they keep for signing onto a plan cooked up by the same president they just called a threat to the American republic? What does that do for their argument he is such a threat?

All this is to say, this morning also calls into question whether the Democrats, for all their recent talk of defending the American republic, have really come to grips with what they're up against. The Attorney General of the United States, a theocrat who subscribes to an insane view of presidential power when a Republican is president, just publicly backed the idea the Obama administration was "spying," just like McCarthy did. An authoritarian movement does not see political speech as a tool to persuade a majority of the public that its course of action is the best, and rooted in observable reality. Rhetoric is a cudgel to be wielded against the Enemies, and Democrats are among the Enemies. They are at political war, it's just not clear that Democrats really know it. Even Kevin McCarthy has figured that one out.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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