Denying the Attack on Pelosi Is a Bridge to Supporting It The mental contortions of the anti-anti-DePape right.

He was a former hippie nudist, and therefore couldn’t have migrated to the right. Or maybe he was a sex worker involved in an illicit tryst. Republicans needed to believe there was some account for his actions other than the obvious one sitting in plain sight, on DePape’s online commentaries: He subscribed to the same right-wing conspiracy theories held by millions of Republicans. “He really believed in the whole MAGA, ‘Pizzagate,’ stolen election — you know, all of it, all the way down the line. If you go to Fox News, if you go on the internet and you look at QAnon, you know, he had all these theories,” his former boss told the New York Times.

This obfuscation serves two purposes. First, it avoids a disruption in the right’s meta-narrative of victimization. The story told by conservative media is one in which innocent conservatives are relentlessly persecuted by an all-powerful progressive cabal. This persecution justifies the right’s increasingly illiberal methods, which they present as a necessary defensive response to stave off political annihilation. If they were to acknowledge even one episode of a violent maniac attacking their enemy, it would mean contemplating a reality in which evil and blame are more complex.

Second, deflecting this reality allows them to avoid having to confront a faction within their own coalition. If they conceded DePape was on the political right, they would concede that ideas like Trump’s stolen-election lie or QAnon contained at least the potential to inspire violence and criminality. Their denial grew out of an impulse to close ranks. They might be able to afford cutting DePape loose, but they could not afford to alienate those who shared his most important beliefs.

As the Republican Party has attracted a greater number of bigots, conspiracy theorists, and paramilitary members, the need to engage in these mental contortions has grown increasingly common on the right in recent years. The right has responded in a similar way to every new appearance of an unacceptable element of its coalition: QAnon, election truthers, antisemites, insurrectionists, and anti-vaxxers. Insisting the unacceptable idea does not merit condemnation is a bridge that usually leads to reconciling with that idea.