... loyal to other people whom they perceive to be their allies, instead of logic and evidence. They're capable of acknowledging the latter, but it's not as important to them as their tribal group. They'll even happily cite an article from the New York Times if it's favorable for them, even if they previously proclaimed it's full of nothing but "liberal lies".
Republicans used to counter-protest during the conflict in Vietnam, "My country, right or wrong!" Those people were openly admitting that loyalty to their tribe (the USA in that case) was more important to them than any moral principles!
So when their long-time tribal leaders go off the rails, they'll tend to sacrifice logic and evidence even more than usual to defend those tribal allies.
With social media, they get regular reinforcement of the weirdness too. They're even directed to it by computer algorithms used by Facebook and others, since reinforcing stories tend to generate more clicks for increased ad revenue.
I've seen evidence of similar tribalism among some Democrats on DU, but it's definitely not as pervasive compared to Republicans. Almost all of the right-wing authoritarians (which can include Democrats if they demand conformity of thought and behavior) in this country are Republicans.
I think many Republicans could become fascists quite easily, even if their party leaders and propagandists copied the ideas and behavior of the former Nazi party in Germany to a ridiculous extent -- same party name, symbols, uniforms, etc. The evil atrocities too! They'd just need to repeatedly hear that's the "right way" for a stronger party and country, from a multitude of right-wing sources like Fox News, right-wing radio and their specially-tailored social media sources (who try to increase their own click-based revenue with the nonsense). It wouldn't happen quickly, but I think it's very plausible given enough time and tribal repetition.
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