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I understand that constantly calling the Republican base batshit crazy gets old.  I really do.  Honest.  But via TPM, check out this survey result from Public Policy Polling: 52% of Republicans now think that ACORN stole the 2008 election from John McCain.

There aren’t words for this.  Something like 40 million Republicans are now convinced that ACORN (!) somehow managed to steal an election that McCain lost by seven percentage points. Another 20 million think they might have stolen it but aren’t sure.  The Fox/Limbaugh/Palin axis, which probably directly reaches maybe 10 million people on a regular basis, has nonetheless convinced six times that number to buy into a conspiracy theory that makes the Area 51 crowd look sane by comparison.

This is craziness.  I could understand 10 or 15% believing this.  That’s sort of the base level of people who will believe any nutty idea.  But 52%?  Someone in the GOP needs to take a deep breath and a long look in the mirror, and then try to rescue their party.  Condoning insanity is not a long-term electoral strategy.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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