According to NYT columnist, Ross Douthat, upwards of 60% of registered Republicans believe the recent election of Joe Biden as president was neither free nor fair. In fact it was a giant conspiracy to deny the president* a glorious 2nd term.
Douthat is one of the Times designated conservatives. As a card carrying intellectual, he is above the conspiracy theories presently being put forward by talk radio, Newsmax and other far right sources. Even, or especially the demented rants routinely broadcast from the White House fail to move him. However, even reasonably intelligent people of his acquaintance have confided to him their attraction to some of the stolen election rumors.
He theorizes many intelligent conservatives (oxymoron) have been raised to dispute anything advocated for by the liberal intelligentsia. Therefore, as insane as it seems they would prefer to believe tRump's baseless accusations rather than the media's debunking of cheating allegations. Even the tossing of dozens of the tRump campaign's lawsuits, some with prejudice will not shake them in their beliefs.
A second group of conspiracy theorists gravitate to the most outrageous internet sites to confirm their strongly held fantasies. These are descendants of JFK conspiracies, 911 truthers and Obama birth certificate conspiracies.
Finally there are the newly radicalized blue collar working class voters who feel the entire system is gamed against them and who have wrongly fixed on DJT as the one who can fix it all.
These disparate parts of the Republican coalition will be with us in 2024 Douthat suggests unless we can come up with arguments tailored to each demographic's particular persuasion. He suggest he will be making these arguments to anyone who will listen right up until tRump is nominated by the GOP in 2024. I wish him luck.
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