How much toxicity can American democracy take before it collapses?

Here’s pro-life conservative pundit Dana Loesch speaking about the scandal surrounding former pro-football player, anti-abortion advocate, and Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker after Walker denied allegedly paying for an abortion for his girlfriend.

“I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.” Loesch said.

“How many times have I said four very important words,” she added: Winning. Is. A. Virtue.”

Loesch perfectly encompasses the Republican mantra placing winning over Responsible. Accountable. Honest. Democratic. Governance.

One by one, Republicans show who they are by their increasing and shameless hypocrisy.

Remember Lindsey Graham?

Donald Trump is “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

In 2015, Graham cautioned his colleagues:

“This is a defining moment in the future of the Republican Party. We have to reject this demagoguery, and if we don’t reject Donald Trump, we’ve lost the moral authority … to govern this great nation.”

When asked by a reporter why he went from rabid Trump hater to perhaps the loyalist dog in Trump’s orbit, here’s how the newly baptized Lindsey Graham responded:

“If you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this,” Graham said.

“This,” he defined, is “to try to be relevant.”

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy said on the House floor.

“He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump and accept his share of responsibility.”

An audio of a meeting McCarthy had with Republican members, McCarthy said this:

“I know there’s going to be some dark days, then it’s going to get really dark. But the one thing I will tell you, we should take this moment to change course, to improve, and more importantly we we’ve got to be united what Democrats are going to do in the future. We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened, who did it, and people need to be held accountable for it. And I’m committed to making that happened.”

McCarthy’s commitment to accountability changed to another moment in hypocrisy when he flew down to Mar-a-Lago, kissed Trump’s ring and was granted absolution.

To date, there are no less than 30 Trump-backed candidates running for key state and federal positions that could very likely change or overturn the vote of millions.

For Republicans, character doesn’t count. Winning does.

Much of the Republican electorate has been so indoctrinated, brainwashed, propagandized in Trump lies and belligerence, that power literally trumps character.

Trump entered politics as a showman, a huckster, a political joke whose only interest was in building himself up, expanding his brand and his ego.

Today, however Trump’s lies and unrelenting attacks have become a cancer on democracy infecting supporters and acolytes running for key state and federal offices by copying their master’s rhetoric to seek his blessing.

How much toxic dishonesty and hypocrisy can American democracy endure?

The answer will likely come next month.