Republicans don’t believe in rhetoric. There is a fundamental aversion to the idea that anyone can persuade anyone else of anything, or to the idea that culpability can be shared for any reason. Every person is sovereign, separate and inviolable. https://twitter.com/sambrodey/status/1359633309479927817

But they maintain this belief by all obsessively supporting and consuming a massive propaganda ecosystem that exists out of an explicit fear of the profound ability of journalism based in truth to turn otherwise conservative Americans away from their unshakeable principles.

They demand every politician be a “principled conservative” who acts according to an explicit set of dogmatic principles which should be honored regardless of public opinion. And every time a politician acts on principle, in defiance of the base, the base loses its fucking mind.