Why, we all want to know, do Republicans believe in nonsense that has been repeatedly debunked over decades, and in some cases 150 years since the Civil War? And, to be fair, why do other people believe even older nonsense? At the same time, why do they keep making stuff up? Several scientific studies have been done on various aspects of the problem, including research reported in our first book, When Prophecy Fails.
The key finding is that under certain circumstances disconfirmation of a prophecy or other prediction results in greater belief, accepting of flimsy excuses for what happened, and increased recruiting of others to the cult, which may or may not work.
These conditions hold in spades for the Republican Party, particularly since the beginning of the racist Southern Strategy and recruitment of Religious Right bigots, misogynists, and Mammonites. Below the fold we will examine some of the evidence and several cases, starting with the original UFO cult that is the main topic of the book and continuing to the current drive for impeachment. Then we can start to discuss what to do about all of that, particularly since various of the Republican factions are shrinking, and demographics are strongly against them. That will take us into brief previews of some future books in this series.