I'm trying to listen through the rhetoric of the Democrats waving aside the IRS scandal and continuing to worry about “dark money.”  Surely those Dems don't really believe that the IRS are the good guys in this.

But it all makes sense if today's Dems have actually come to believe their own lies. 

Politicians say what they have to say to win elections. In the 1930s Democrats were the great friends of the working stiffs, and showered them with free stuff. Anyone that disagreed was a dupe of the rich and the corporate goons.

But wise heads knew that you had to allow business to make a profit, and when World War II started the Dems turned business into the arsenal of democracy and sent the sons of the working stiffs off to Europe.

In the 1960s, when the 1930s working stiffs had become householders and begun the move to the GOP, the Dems had to win elections in new ways. So they became the friends of minorities and women and showered them with quotas and free stuff. Anyone that disagreed was a racist and a sexist. Anyone that disagreed with unlimited immigration was a nativist.

It all worked so well that gays and lesbians declared themselves helpless victims too and the Democrats showered them with love and marriage equality. Anyone that disagreed was a homophobe.

No doubt there are liberal academicians that will tell you the racist-sexist-homophobe stuff is just a rhetorical trick to get the rubes to the polls, but that the flame of tolerance and universal values is safe in their hands. They are wrong, of course. The enthusiasts stole the flame from the temple decades ago; there's nothing left in the holy of holies.

And crucially, every student attending college today gets the racist-sexist-homophobe agenda force-fed to them. Those college teachers may know tolerance and universal values in their hearts, but they aren't teaching any of it to the students.

Today, ordinary liberals in politics and culture believe the liberal lies that the professors have taught them, from sexism to climate change, as young people have always done. When the kids blunder into reality, it's almost comical. Here's a story from Caleb Rossiter, the math prof. that got dis-fellowshipped from the liberal Institute for Policy Studies community. Rossiter makes his students study the statistics of modern settled science.

“I have had students who are very strongly pro-the global warming movement in my classes, of course, because most young people have heard this already,” he said. “And when I have them actually do the study, and take apart an IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] claim, sometimes they break into tears, and they say ‘I can’t believe this is the only class I’ve ever been in in which anyone has ever told me there is even an issue.’”

No wonder the liberals panicked over the Supreme Court Citizens United decision. Corporations could now give unlimited amounts to politics, and in secret! Imagine all the racist sexist homophobes and climate change deniers that would come out of the woodwork -- or rather stay in the woodwork while cynical white male GOP operatives infected the great unwashed with their evil spawn.

No wonder President Obama insulted the whole Supreme Court in his 2010 State of the Union speech. No wonder the IRS swung into action. No wonder Democratic senators and representatives started calling their pals at the IRS to egg them on.

No wonder. Democrats now believe their own lies.

Imagine if there really were squadrons of Koch Brothers clones out there waiting to flood the political market with dark money! In reality, most corporations are terrified of getting on the wrong side of Democrats; that's why they pay the Dems mountains in tribute; that's why jillionaire Warren Buffett makes sure everyone knows he's a good Democrat who believes in tax increases and contributes to abortions and all. 

In the best of all possible worlds, a ruling class would be cunning Straussians. They would outwardly observe the proprieties and protect the noble lie upon which their rule depends, but they would allow esoteric writings through which the best minds could penetrate to the truth. A ruling class needs people in the back room to do the polling.

But in the real world, politicians rise up through a quasi-religious culture that has already given meaning to the world. Here's conservative author Harry Stein:

[W]hen I asked a liberal longtime editor I know with a mainstream [publishing] house for a candid, shorthand version of the assumptions she and her colleagues make about conservatives, she didn't hesitate. “Racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-choice fascists,” she offered, smiling but meaning it.

And that's how you get Democratic congressmen lauding a corrupt and arrogant IRS on national television.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also see his American Manifesto and get his Road to the Middle Class.