The story Republicans are really telling themselves about impeachment

Here's what the GOP believes

President Trump.

Cynicism comes easy in an era of maximal polarization. Different parties embrace different ideologies, agendas, and sometimes even entirely distinct constellations of facts and truths. From inside either closed world, the other one appears shot through with delusion — with its leaders blamed for actively encouraging deception for the sake of political gain.

That's what I've accused Republicans of doing in a pair of recent columns. I've called them cynics who manipulate voters by intentionally deceiving them with lies — and sometimes even by eliding the distinction between truth and falsehood altogether — for the sake of winning political advantage. But there is something more than a little cynical about this very accusation itself. Some, like President Trump and his most loyal minions in Congress (I'm looking at you, Devin Nunes), may well be comfortable spreading a miasma of epistemological confusion out of political expediency. But that's not all that's going on on the Republican side of the debate about impeachment.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.