So convinced of their own righteousness were they that it allowed them to participate in, even instigate, the subversion of our justice system to the extent of lying to and deceiving a FISA court in the name of what they assumed was "good." They did this in concert with people who claimed to be Republicans or "independents" working for that system in the supposedly noble cause of upending Donald Trump, before and after his election, but ended up being the deluded agents of government corruption the likes of which we have never seen in this country.
It comes down to something as crude as this: Trump's a bad guy, therefore I'm a good guy and can do or say anything I wish to destroy Trump. This is moral narcissism taken to a pathological extreme.
Practically with each passing day, as more and more largely arbitrary redactions are pried away from documents that were deliberately hidden from public view in the first place by endless stonewalling, the venality of their true motivations -- and of their cohort's actions -- becomes more evident.
The ramifications of that unmasking (note the word) will be more extensive than expected and will reach into every aspect of our culture, even to the last lines of liberal/progressive defense -- the media, entertainment and education. The results won't go in a straight line -- they rarely do. And many will remain true believers, no matter what. That's what true believers do. Their defenders will also become increasingly shrill as the wagons continue to circle. But the Democrats -- and I strongly suspect many of them are starting to realize it (hence that shrillness) -- are headed for a world of hurt.
They have much to fear. They have to deal with ongoing congressional investigations from Messrs. Johnson, Grassley, Goodlatte and Nunes, among others, that continue to reveal information highly damaging to the Democrats, the FBI and the DOJ. Unlike the missteps and hypocrisy from the Democratic side of these investigations, in not a single instance has the information revealed by these Republicans been factually disputed with success, despite endless spin. This is because the Democrats are relying almost exclusively on dubious leaks augmented by slavish regurgitation from media ideologues (see Michael Isikoff and David Corn). The Republicans are relying on those actual documents, most of which have to be extracted from the DOJ/FBI with legal crowbars, but eventually surface. More are on the way, slowly but surely, probably through summer and into the fall elections. The timing couldn't be worse for Democrats.
Meanwhile, the only substantive collusion between the Russians and the U.S. is clearly on the Democratic side. The Uranium One whistleblower spent three hours Thursday speaking with staff of three congressional committees. This scandal is under investigation again and much of it, we already know, is founded on facts -- real money, millions, that exchanged hands while American uranium went into Russian hands. More details should be emerging soon.