“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled,” advised Keyser Soze, “was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

One of the best lines in movie history, uttered by the recently unpersonned Kevin Spacey in his Oscar-winning turn in The Usual Suspects, it has the benefit of being true.

Not to plot-spoil it for readers who have not found time in the past quarter-century to see this two-hour tour de force, the twist of the tale is that, not only does the devil very much exist, he takes the form you would least suppose.

That is, he feigns weakness, innocence, and vulnerability, even as he exercises wickedness, power, and control.

The trouble for Democrats in recent days is that their disguise has become transparent.

If it seems this dialectic equates the Democrat Party with the devil himself, then you are following aptly.

Millions of us are neither hard-core Republicans nor diehard Trump fans, but we know we could never join with the left in general or the Democrats in particular.

This is because we see the Democrats as the party of partial-birth abortion (and selling dismembered baby parts thereafter), relentlessly sexualizing children who make it into the world, incessantly dividing people by race, purveyors of lies and profanity, hateful accusers of Christianity and traditional mores, control addicts and tormentors of those who dissent, the political arm of the angry mob.

We rarely say as much in public or out loud. Differences arise on this issue or that, but declarative statements identifying Democrats with metaphysical evil are generally left to the firebrands of the right, or religious types who specialize in talking that way.

But the conduct of Democrats, not only during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination process, but in the months and years preceding, has made the correlation clear.

What is most dumbfounding to traditional people is the hurricane of hypocrisy and flurry of lies that surrounds this.

Nearly a half-century after the fact, it is still considered impolite or harsh to point out that Democratic senator Ted Kennedy left a young woman to drown in a car after he drove off a bridge.

That act in itself is purely evil. But equally chilling is to witness the successive generations of Democrats who excuse, deny, or ignore this incident, even as they accuse their political opponents of waging “war on women.”

Democratic senator Robert Byrd was an active and enthusiastic member of the Ku Klux Klan who uttered the vilest racial terms on television right up until the early years of this century. He was embraced by his party and remained safely in office until his death, even as Democrats constantly accuse the other side of racism and bigotry.

We are barely a year removed from a Democratic partisan stalking out a baseball diamond and expressly confirming that the people playing there were Republicans before opening fire, yet Democrats and their media fellow-travelers fret that it is Republicans whose views “could lead to violence.”

Which brings us to the Kavanaugh debacle.

From the beginning, the peculiar aspect surrounding the accusations against Kavanaugh was not that Republicans might not believe them; rather, it is that Democrats themselves do not believe them.

It is an odd, almost ethereal idea, rarely spoken but largely understood, that on this as on so many issues, Democrats do not believe the words and phrases they passionately deploy.

Everyone, left and right, knows this fight is about something else. The things Democrats say about Kavanaugh are rhetorical weapons of opportunity, and they know it.

This is why narratives continue to shift, demands are ever-changing and never satisfied, and the battle rages over generalizations regarding “women” and “survivors” rather than the facts.

Jesus described the devil as both “a murderer” and “the father of lies.” The juxtaposition is significant, since to lie is, in essence, to murder the truth.

From Moses to Milton to Michael Moore, the denial of objective truth, defined and dispensed from above, has been central to the devil’s modus operandi.

When Democratic Senator Cory Booker congratulated one of Kavanaugh’s accusers of speaking “her truth,” he said a mouthful.

Barack Obama once defined sin as “Being out of alignment with my values.”

As a professed Christian, it is possible Obama meant the violation of immutable right and wrong, the trespassing of objective truth, which can be felt within the soul of each person, if they wish. We all have that place inside us. God lives there.

Given his party affiliation and public record, however, it seems more likely that Obama means compromising truth and goodness as determined by himself alone.

On innumerable issues, from the Kavanaugh case to their newfound yet sacrosanct belief that gender is a matter of individual choice, Democrats declare things they themselves know to be untrue and, indispensable to their need to play God, insist that everyone else yield to their pronouncements.

Relatedly, a word about mobs: Deep within the human mind is the burning desire to control others, and to punish those who resist. This is most effectively performed as part of a mob. Essentially, that is what Twitter is for.

This innate need to rule and harm is tempered in those who accept they themselves are not the sole arbiters of good and evil. But within those who insist they alone determine “their truth,” anger burns, particularly at those who refuse to submit.

Whatever your political affiliation, you know very well that Democrat politicians would never be hounded out of restaurants, harassed in public places, have their homes surrounded and vandalized, and their children mocked, as has happened to Republicans lately.

This particular technique of mobbing and public abuse is a staple of Castro’s Cuba and other communist regimes. In America, it was incubated on the college campus before its recent graduation to national politics. And it is a practical manifestation of the devil’s rage against the light.

Lies are the means to, and the purpose of, power.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticize,” avers Voltaire. For all Democrats’ complaints about “white male privilege,” no leftist utterance would seem complete without a swipe at white people, particularly men.

And who cannot be criticized? Anyone who achieves victim status. Currently, this includes Kavanaugh’s accusers, no matter how outlandish their claims.

Here, as in Keyser Soze’s example, brute power wears a veil of innocence and vulnerability.

The point is not that Democrats, in particular, are evil. All people are evil.

The difference is that traditional Americans and Christians, by definition, understand this about themselves and recognize the need for redemption by a higher power.

For Democrats, there is no higher power but power itself.