Good article but I think the thing it misses is those that currently make up “the base” on the right seem to share the commonality of wanting to be conned. The Christian nationalists, the conspiracy theorists, the buyers of whatever snake oil are currently on offer all want easy, unnuanced answers that continue to validate whatever they’re used to. They ignore systemic issues in favor of the fear du jour because solving the real problems strike at their sense of identity and they’re willing to believe literally anything rather than face the issues that really matter. A feedback loop has taken hold of the GOP which just keeps cranking them further and further away from any sort of reasonable ideology and instead replaced it with spurious and unfounded anxieties and fears. The media has constantly exacerbated this because it increases their metrics and ad dollars to sell the side show.
Would it be incorrect to think that Mark Twain already described how scammers feed off the US religious right in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1884). I am referring to “The King” and “the Duke”.
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