An outside interest group meddled in the Republican primaries in 2022 to the tune of $19 million dollars in order to prop up the GOP’s Trumpiest candidates, particularly those who’d questioned the official outcome of the 2020 election. What monstrous group would ever do such a thing?

A loyal MSNBC viewer might immediately begin connecting illusory dots from Mar-a-Lago to Moscow, just as trained. A savvier liberal might sense the shadow of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his worldwide posse of post-liberal pundits. A partisan hack in the liberal media might try to pin it on Elon Musk.