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Perhaps the strangest part of the impeachment process against President Donald Trump is its origin: Trumps own false belief that somehow the government of Ukraine has been secretly working against him.

It is difficult to state, without exaggeration, just how bizarre this notion is. Trump will be tried in the Senate over the actions he took based on an idea that doesnt exist in reality.

The idea Trumps idea is that Ukraine is responsible for pushing a false narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, to his benefit. (Theres no evidence for this idea. The opposite is true: Russia did interfere in the election, and Ukraine had nothing to do with it.)

Even on its own terms, the idea makes no sense. Ukraine needed the USs help in its fight against Russia. Why would it be simultaneously sabotaging an election while asking for help?

Nonetheless, Trump believes it.

They tried to take me down, Trump said of the Ukraine government, at a meeting in the Oval office in May, according to the Washington Post. They are horrible, corrupt people.

His staff, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, tried to give him good advice. After all, Ukraine is a country that desperately needed US military aid at the time.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo couldnt find any evidence for the theory either, and he ended up calling Fox News for clues.

Trump was having none of it. We could never quite understand it, a former senior White House official told the Post. There were accusations that they had somehow worked with the Clinton campaign. There were accusations theyd hurt him. He just hated Ukraine.

Trumps impeachment isnt the only real-world consequence of the fictional belief that, for some squirrelly reason, Ukraine was sabotaging Trump while simultaneously relying on him for help. Trumps personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, has spent so much time in Ukraine in search of the truth that he is now under federal investigation for possibly failing to register as a foreign agent of Ukraine, and possible violations of campaign finance law, according to Bloomberg.

This has potentially serious consequences for Giuliani. The penalty for failing to register as a foreign agent is up to five years in prison.

Yet Giuliani is doubling down. He spent early December in Ukraine interviewing former prosecutors in hopes of finding something anything that might demonstrate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens son was somehow involved in corruption in Ukraine. So far, nothing.

Previously, conservatives pushed false conspiracy theories precisely because they knew the theories were false. Airing theories that are false has several tactical advantages:

There is a great story by BuzzFeeds Joe Bernstein that describes how alt-right conspiracy web sites create their news. Activists see their lies as a form of entertainment, in much the same way that liberals used to enjoy Stephen Colberts fictional conservative persona on The Colbert Report.

In the story, Nora Ralph, one of the editors of the Ralph Retort (a conservative conspiracy site) describes how she feels about Infowars Alex Jones, another prolific pusher of political fiction. To me, thats entertainment. We dont really think the frogs are gay. I dont think the protein powder works. I never thought some people watch this stuff and are like, yes, this is hard-hitting journalism. I thought most of us could distinguish between entertainment and facts. I never really thought people were stupid enough to get caught up in this stuff.

It comes as a surprise to discover that Trump is not in on the joke. Hes not blathering on about Ukraine because he enjoys triggering Trump Derangement Syndrome among his enemies. He really believes this stuff.

And its not just Ukraine. Consider:

Trump isnt pushing conspiracies as part of an elaborate game with the media. He is genuinely unable to tell fact from fiction. That makes the crisis inside the White House a level more dangerous. Dangerous for him in terms of the legal consequences. And dangerous for the country, whose foreign and domestic policies are being derailed by things that dont exist in real life.

I asked Travis View, a longtime observer of the QAnon conspiracy movement, why anyone would voluntarily gull themselves into such a tight corner that they might, like Giuliani, be prosecuted.

For Pizzagate believers, it was satisfying to think that Hillary Clinton would be arrested for child sex trafficking. For Alex Jones, spreading baseless conspiracy theories gained him a large audience and wealth, he told me.

For Trump, believing that Ukraine was responsible for election meddling absolves Russia, and therefore removed the taint from Trumps election victory. It takes less emotional effort to believe in a baseless conspiracy theory that uplifts your allies and condemns your enemies than a difficult, hard, complex truth.

The embrace of fictitious beliefs regardless of the real-world consequences is a step-change in conservative thinking. You can see it in climate science denial, QAnon, the anti-vaxx movement, and believing that the water supply is contaminated with chemicals that make frogs gay. False ideas are no longer being pushed as a strategy of distraction. Now they are required as articles of faith, facts that require belief regardless of the real-world consequences.

As Giulianis legal situation indicates, there are real dangers to this line of thinking. Alex Jones, too, has been successfully sued for pushing the line that the Sandy Hook shooting never occurred.

Trump, however, clearly doesnt care.

The question is whether conservatism as a whole wants to follow him off this cliff.

Read more:
Trump's very real impeachment is based on his own false beliefs and it represents a suicidal step-change in conservative thinking - Business Insider