I know we've been pounding this hard for a long time, but the story of the 2024 GOP is first and foremost a story about feral disinformation

From last week:

At the risk of stating the obvious, having the majority of your party believe that you actually won the last election and should be in office now gives you a tremendous advantage in the primary. This is one of the antibodies that Josh Marshall has mentioned that makes it all but impossible for a challenger to take the nomination away from Donald Trump. (This is not to say that Trump can't be taken out, just that it would almost certainly require external forces like health issues or big legal developments).

We also pointed out that belief in these conspiracies was especially problematic for the establishment candidate, Nikki Haley.

If the post had come out a few days later, we might have included this.
 

 

 [More on HAARP's special place in the febrile mind tomorrow.]

With that and this in mind, check out this data point from Iowa.

Another notable breakdown from the @NBCNews Iowa entrance poll

Do you believe Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020?

Yes:

Haley voters: 79%
DeSantis voters: 40%
Trump voters: 6%

No:

Haley voters: 19%
DeSantis voters: 54%
Trump voters: 90%https://t.co/59TBLALVQX

— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) January 16, 2024

I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of to what degree belief causes support compared with the other way around (I'm sure you can find both), but the correlation is undeniable, as is the difference in levels of 2000 Mules believers between Haley and DeSantis voters. In normal times, having fewer conspiracy nuts among your supporters would be a good thing, but in this year's Republican primary, it's likely to be fatal.