Despite being waterlogged by scandal and disagreement, the Democratic Party is far from headed for a shipwreck. Waves of destruction may threaten, but Democrats cling fast to what they regard as their righteous, life-saving superiority. They have always believed their salvation lies in having faith in their own intrinsic goodness. Despite the irony of terms, those on the left view themselves as those in the right. And they take it one leap further to presume that right makes might.

The party may well be foundering, but their diehards recognize the distinction between being at sea and being all washed up -- and it keeps them treading water. Who knows what’s going on now behind closed DNC doors -- or even cares to! -- but despite the disparaging revelations of Donna Brazile, the damning DNC-financed Russian dossier, the Uranium One deal, etc. spokespersons for the Democrat Party are as brazenly determined as ever.

Surely, some of them must have some sense of fear and loathing, since they routinely employ these very elements in attacking their enemies. Still, they also understand how important it is for the party to hold it all together, because they have seen how potent their own attempts have been to divide their opposition.

So let us not rejoice prematurely at the party’s inevitable collapse. Democrats still persist in being as defiant as hell in answering to the charges against them. At best, they hope to be absolved of guilt. At the very least, they intend to level the playing field.

Certain tactics have in the past worked well for the Democrats in deflecting attention and giving their wounds time to heal. It’s only a matter of using the same ploy to fool the same crowd. In the way a crime scene predictably shows carnage, yellow tape, flowers, and candles, the Left has devised its own special scenario to put on display in the aftermath of disaster.

To begin with, there is rarely an outright denial of charges. Few liberal leaders, talking heads or partisan journalists pass comment on the validity of whatever criticism is leveled at Democrats. They would not, for example, insist that Hillary Clinton knew “nothing” about the Uranium One deal. Such a claim would be going too far, considering her position at the time and her preferred image as a woman in charge. Nor would they deny that the Clinton Foundation got $145 million from the Russians, because that bit of information is on the books.

Instead, their scheming is far more subtle, presenting almost by rote the following talking points to temper or even nullify accusations:

Excuse #1: It’s old news.      

When asked in her interview with the BBC about the criminal accusations of sexual impropriety against her own husband, Hillary Clinton blithely dismissed them as something in the past that had long since been resolved.

In the light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Hillary did not need an advance heads-up from Donna Brazile to suspect that an interviewer might throw her that curve ball. She was ready; the “old news” charge would do nicely.

Excuse #2: Others do the same thing in both parties.

This defense is not even presented in the shameless spirit of “two wrongs make a right.” Instead, it is couched in a sort of ho-hum insider understanding of how people routinely operate in the world of politics. If Hillary held the DNC hostage to her inevitable candidacy, well, that’s the way it often is, especially since her personal wealth and influence were able to presumably “salvage” a cash-strapped organization. So her impropriety becomes nothing out of the ordinary -- in fact, little more than a quid pro quo.

Excuse #3: Whatever our guys did, yours did worse.

Psychologists would have a field day with this kind of argument. It’s the spouse who, caught carousing, grumbles about what a lousy housekeeper his mate is. But what Democrats routinely do is less innocuous than not running a vacuum. As a diversionary tactic, they run roughshod over any Republicans in the news.

Every GOP-related scandal, real or imagined, is trotted out as a means of insinuating that thieves cannot complain about theft. How George Papadopoulos -- who attended a single general meeting with Trump supporters and was neither hired nor paid by the campaign -- can nevertheless be represented as a “policy advisor to the president” is, well, Greek to me!

Paul Manafort is routinely referred to as Trump’s “campaign manager,” even though his tenure in that role lasted no more than three months, and the current charges against him have nothing to do with the Trump campaign.

What is sloughed off as “opposition research” by Democrats is scarred as traitorous when attempted by Republicans. Over the fabricated dossier on Trump, Tony Podesta merely resigned from his lobbying firm. Yet in the wake of his Russia dealings, Donald Trump, Jr., had to resign himself to seeing his picture on the cover of Time magazine, above the one-word caption “Treason”.

Excuse #4: Compared to the “disarray” in the GOP, the Democrat Party is strong.

This has been a common refrain whether the Democrats are in or out of office –- or hot water. And it is true that they are generally better than Republicans at keeping their squabbles and dirty laundry out of public view. Despite their claim of “diversity” within the party, Democrats actually prefer to speak in one raucous voice and with a single set of party line talking points, just as their favorite form of resistance is marching, screaming and acting up in unison.

In their tit for tat, Democrats often remind us that the Republicans majority in Congress has done nothing, failing to repeal or replace Obamacare, scrambling in attempts at tax reform, and taking repeated potshots at one another.   

Meanwhile, beyond the array of excuses, the election ground game of the Democrats remains as brutally mean-spirited as ever. If the brand has been battered by scandal or rocked by hypocrisy, you wouldn’t know it from the consistent use of the usual below-the-belt tactics. Obviously, they don’t think their “act” needs cleaning up. In fact, the recent criticism may make them fight even harder and dirtier.

A much-discussed campaign ad against Ed Gillespie in the Virginia gubernatorial race hit a new, disgraceful low in negative political advertising. It showed a Gillespie supporter in his truck, Confederate flag flying, trying to run down and kill alien children. 

It’s not enough that Republicans are routinely portrayed as heartless bigots who would throw granny off the cliff; round up “undocumented workers” -- in the middle of the night, of course -- and send them packing; allow 40,000 uninsured Americans to die, untreated, on our streets; deny all Muslims their civil rights; close down our public schools; send women to back alleys for abortions; remove all safeguards that protect us from dirty air and water; menace countries like North Korea and Iran into starting a nuclear war… and steal the presidency in order to make all of the above happen.

But the most discouraging thing is that plenty of Democrats believe these charges, and their leaders encourage them to do so. A few liberal voices may have been raised against the Gillespie attack ad, but to a whole bunch of other Americans it represents the truth.

What all of this really demonstrates is the Democrats’ in order to regain control, will willingly spread fear and hate. These have become the ultimate weapons through which they presume to cling to whatever power they still have. In their sea of lies, fear is the flotsam and hate the jetsam, the key elements on which they rely to save them from death by drowning.

There is another “commercial spot” airing on some channels, in which a billionaire proposes to lead the charge for Trump’s impeachment. Though the claims in this ad are false, it serves the purpose of working gullible viewers into a sweat of hate for the president and fear for what will happen if Republicans remain in power.

Democrats are counting on two powerful negative emotions to keep their battered, leaky ship afloat. In the meantime, the rats are still frantically scuttling along the deck and gnawing away at everything this Republican administration puts forward.