Even if it wanted to, the Republican party can’t stop the spread of QAnon conspiracies and candidates which support them.

This election has seen the emergence of Republican Party candidates who support conspiracy theories like QAnon. Ben Margulies examines the rise of these candidates, and reminds us that US political culture has a long history of conspiracy theorizing, which can often lead to political violence. In addition, the decentralized structure of US political parties can make it difficult to screen out more extremist candidates from the grassroots, especially for the GOP which has become more ideologically extreme in recent decades.