Probably the most convenient thing about turning one’s political party into a something closer to a religion, as the Republicans have increasingly done, is that your adherents can be relied upon to believe anything you say, no matter how implausible, provably false, or downright cuckoo it happens to be. When you’re talking about a religion, after all, the more improbable the belief is, the more fervently it is held, and for Republicans this tendency is always a bonus, for good reason.