Are Republican leaders more prone to conspiracy theories?

In a previous post, we argued that the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories is roughly equivalent between Republicans and Democrats. Using polling data, we showed instances where people of both parties were as likely to believe in conspiracy theories in general, and in comparable conspiracy theories in particular, such as voter fraud, birtherism, and trutherism.

Paul Krugman, Jonathan Bernstein, and Andrew Gelman protested. Although Krugman has previously implied otherwise by referring to modern conservatism as a “cult, very much given to conspiracy theorizing,” none of them objected to our claim that conspiracism is about equal among the masses. They did however counter that Republican elites are more approving of conspiracy theories than Democratic elites.

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