They’ve also been sold a bill of goods about how the economy is supposed to work. And they’ll continue to accept the Republican ideological orthodoxy, for the same reason a Christian will keep prayer or an Oaklan A’s fan will keep cheering straight into the grave.

When the economy is good, it’s because Republicans did the right thing. When the economy is bad, it’s because of external forces hostile to the US or an insidious Fifth Column of undercover leftists sabotaging things. Bad economic news isn’t going to change your adherence to dogmatic beliefs, particularly when you’re dealing with a macro-economic problem that has a thousand different inputs to blame at any given moment.

As a fundamental case in point, plenty of the liberal economic strain will tell you that our economic downturn is the result of severe heat caused by climate change. But conservatives who don’t believe in climate change won’t accept that diagnosis. So they’re definitely not going to accept liberal economic reforms - particularly those intended to mitigate the causes and consequences of climate change - as a solution.