Conservatives who are capable of good quality research, and honest self-reflection barely exist because those two qualities often destroy their affiliations to modern conservativism as it stands today.
So some become neocon-neoliberal hybrids, others become economic Libertarians or Fascists in sheeps clothing, but most, are just as they seem - people who feel betrayed and shut out by the prevailing liberalisms of the day (often personified in the form of an ex-wife, ex-boss, or minority on the street), and it’s something they don’t want to investigate or research honestly.
In fact, most conservatives of this “follower” ilk, are deeply and psychologically invested in their sickness, in maintaining their “honest dogma” as it explains past traumas and the state of their lives in easy and convenient ways.
Get them together in groups and it becomes a self-reenforcing system. Self-propagating. It’s a self-sustaining set of problems and problem mindsets.
Some for conspiracy theorists, gets to be a real problem when they get a platform too.