A Manhattan Institute poll taken of 3,000 self-identified Republican voters this month revealed that a very large chunk of these GOP voters, especially the newer arrivals, have views that could at best be described as wrong, or at worst, crazy. This should be worrying to mainstream conservatives. It should also lead us to ask how we really come to know what we know — you know?

The poll found that the “Current GOP” (which they defined as those who are registered as Republicans and those who voted for Trump in 2024) can be split fairly cleanly into two groups — the “Core Republicans” and the “New Entrant Republicans.”

The Core Republicans make up 65% of the group and have been with the party since at least 2016. The New Entrants (29% of Current GOP) did not vote for Republicans until 2024, so they are made up of new voters and former Democrats.

The poll found that the two groups diverged on pretty much every issue (except for support for Donald Trump).

It is well established that younger and newer Republicans are less pro-Israel than older Republicans. The earlier sections show that they are also more likely to justify political violence, deny the Holocaust, and openly express racist views. Less widely recognized, however, is that these same voters hold less conservative views across a broad range of policy areas—including transgender issues, DEI, and taxation. Given that many of these voters are younger and former Democrats, more progressive policy tendencies are unsurprising.

So these voters who were very recently voting Democrat, surprise, have a lot of left-wing views still. There could be many avenues for discussion based on these findings, but what I wanted to talk about specifically is that these “New Entrant Republicans” are much more likely to believe patently absurd things: like that the moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job, or the Holocaust is exaggerated or did not happen — and not just a tiny percentage of them, but often majorities.

The numbers look bad overall on these items, with 37% of “Current GOP” saying the Holocaust was exaggerated or didn’t happen. But it turns out that these “New Entrants” are disproportionately swaying the results.

A stark divide emerges between newer and long-standing Republicans: 34% of New Entrant Republican voters believe most or all of the theories, compared with 11% of Core Republicans. Put another way: 63% of the highest-conspiracy believers previously voted for Obama, Clinton, or Biden at least once since 2008.

Without getting too much into the minutia of all the groups, it’s important to ask why this might be. At the beginning, and in the title, I referenced what in philosophy is called epistemology, or how we know what we know. It might seem like a simple question: We listen to a bunch of different opinions, and one of them emerges as the obvious winner, so we believe that. But human beings are very susceptible to falling for faulty reasoning, bad premises, fake news, inaccurate information… you name it.

So how do you know?

For any of us who work in influencing the public towards principles and ideas that we believe are reliable and reasonable, it can be discouraging to see vast numbers of our fellow countrymen falling for ridiculous theories. But here are a few methods for building the structure of your worldview, fact by fact, principle by principle, without being pulled down rabbit-holes of insanity.

  1. Avoid infotainment: A lot of what passes for education and news consumption today is really more like entertainment based loosely on current events. If there are a lot of emotional arguments, unconventional facts not found in mainstream sources, and leaps of logic… they’re aiming for clicks, not accuracy.
  2. Notice the Gish Gallop: A debater named Duane Gish was notorious for a tactic where he’d overwhelm opponents with objections, in a kind of quantity over quality strategy — which now bears his name. The Gish Gallop is a classic method for those with weak evidence to appear credible. Candace Owens notoriously did this after the death of Charlie Kirk, throwing 1,000 nonsense claims against the wall to make it seem like, even if some “evidence” didn’t eventually pan out, there must be something to the claim that Kirk was killed by a conspiracy of TP USA, the Trump administration, the Israeli government, and his wife Erika.
  3. Give “the official story” the benefit of the doubt in a free society: If we lived in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan or North Korea, I’d say be very skeptical of any official narratives. But one of the benefits of a free society is that we are free to notice and call out bad information and arguments. This process of push and pull quickly leads to a coherent narrative that others with knowledge can further critique if they see reason. But when someone just declares that all of these various voices from government, the private sector, academia, media, and non-profits are conspiring in the same way North Korea’s Kim family does, you should be skeptical — of them.
  4. Verify for yourself: When something is unclear, and you’re hearing multiple claims, the best thing to do — if something does seem wrong with the popular narrative and it’s important to you — is to dig up the primary source documents. These can easily be found online in the information age. Start by assuming that the basics of the mainstream story are correct, not with a new narrative provided by dubious online voices. Then confirm or tweak that narrative from there. But realize that if your research is constantly leading to you throwing out entire chapters of history, you are probably not doing it right.
  5. Don’t fall for conclusions in search of evidence: Sometimes, a figure you respect will declare something: “The 2020 election was stolen,” for example. Then they will propose different pieces of evidence that allegedly prove that conclusion. But then, when one of those is shown not to be accurate or to prove their case, they’ll move to another argument that appears stronger. That’s a sign that the theory is not about evidence but was decided on other grounds beforehand.

Conservatives are in a bad position in terms of knowing who and what to believe. We have good reason for distrusting the “experts” in various professions, like in academia or the media, after being burned or shut out for years. But sadly, many of us have exchanged healthy skepticism for conspiracy lunacy. We’ve tossed out the old experts and installed a new variety who are even less credible than the first.

In an age full of infotainment and dopamine-releasing conspiracy shows, are we still capable of doing the hard work to pursue truth? If the truth is boring or challenges our initial assumptions, are we still capable of wrestling with this? Or will we just switch over to another voice that presents a reality we prefer?