republicans believed the birther conspiracy theory, the racist birther conspiracy theory that barack obama was not born in the united states, far too much. the mainstream political media kind of treated that as a comical aberration. no, they really believed that. that's how donald trump became the nominee and how he ultimately became president. there have to be policy responses to these things over time. for instance, again, how does something that as ben rightly said was once in the supermarket tabloids, how is that reaching 30 to 40% of americans? it's because social media algorithms are written to prioritize sensationalist material that triggers people, triggers their emotions. that's going to have to be a conversation about regulation of how those algorithms are written so you're not main lining conspiracies and disinformation to people. we've been talking about the census. what's happening here is the republican party cannot win a