Writing in the Washington Post this Monday, Paul Waldman says that even though President Trump will no longer be president after January 20, the Republican Party will remain in the grasp of his influence for years to come.
"There have long been right-wing conspiracy theorists, but never before has conspiracy theorizing become so common in the GOP — and its politicians know it," Waldman writes. "The rank and file, having been fed a relentless diet of it for years, are convinced that dark cabals are controlling events, there are no coincidences and anything that doesn’t work out their way can only be the result of menacing forces conspiring against them."
According to Waldman, now that adherents of the QAnon cult have been elected to Congress, party leaders will be compelled to "wink and nod" to every conspiracy theory that comes along.
"We’ll continue to see a vicious cycle in which politicians and the conservative media feed conspiracy theories to the Republican masses, who become ever more convinced they’re true, and therefore the politicians and media continue pandering to them with still more," he writes.
Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post.
