AS THE 2016 election descends into a fever swamp of conspiracy theories, and allegations that victory by one presidential candidate or the other will threaten democracy itself, it has become commonplace to lay some blame on a media as divided as the country. Lexington has typed out that observation several times himself. But every now and then, when reporting from the field, the reality of what that means strikes home. This week took your columnist to Reno, Nevada, to report a column on the state’s Senate race, and on the morning of October 18th to a Republican “victory office” in that city, where party activists were to be thanked for their hard work by Donald Trump Jr., son of the presidential nominee. The scene was familiar enough. The campaign office—a rented unit in a small shopping centre—was packed with mostly older, white Nevadans, many sporting Trump hats, red, white and blue necklaces and, pinned to the blouse of one friendly old lady, a badge reading “Adorable Deplorable”. These were party stalwarts, some of whom said they had initially backed other, more conventionally conservative candidates for the presidency, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But the mood was different: angrier and more suspicious. When Lexington asked to interview volunteers, all agree to speak, but several times a fellow-Republican would interrupt, angrily asking: “How do we know you will report his words accurately?” or “Are you going to tell the truth?”

It is important to note that the Trump campaign has not created a movement from scratch, but channelled forces that have been swirling out there for a long time, often with the endorsement of the same Republican grandees reeling at the hijacking of their party. These include the existence of a parallel media universe, with its own story-lines, running narratives and beliefs; a fervent belief that the “mainstream media” is a mendacious arm of the liberal left, and a hunch that opinion polls are skewed against conservatives.

Lexington was chatting to a middle-aged woman, Kathy Grant, who had brought her camera to record the event. She was not a die-hard Trump fan, explaining: “I agree with Trump’s policies, it’s hard to get past his personality.” But his warnings about a “rigged election” had struck home. Ms Grant casually remarked: “Yesterday, I read something that they are expecting 8m fraudulent votes.” Your columnist noted that elections are decentralised and run by counties and state governments in America, and that many swing states, such as Ohio or Florida, are run by Republicans. How did she imagine such massive fraud would be organised? Oh, Ms Grant said, you don’t have to show voter ID in lots of states, so people vote in the names of the dead. There would be 2m dead voting, she ventured, when pressed. And “illegal aliens”. Where, Lexington asked, had she seen this report? “I read that on Facebook, I don’t know who posted it,” she replied. It was, she said vaguely, from some news agency.

Your columnist asked her whether she would accept the result if Donald Trump did not win. Here is her reply in full, offered as a glimpse of many such conversations right now. Donald Trump “has been saying all along that it’s rigged, but Hillary is desperate to get him any way they can. The election is on my birthday, and I’m terrified. Hillary is going to open the floodgates, and we are going to go the way of Europe. The flood of Muslims. There will be more attacks.”

She was not alone. A warm-up speaker, who identified himself as the Trump campaign’s northern Nevada coordinator for veterans and who sported a tattoo reading “Take the pain” on his forearm, told the crowd that this election was not a fight between Democrats and Republicans, but between “globalists and nationalists”. As an American, he was a nationalist, he declared. “I think people are going to vote for Donald Trump, not so much ‘cos they love him, but because they hate her to death.” That prompted cries of “Yeah!”, “That’s right” and “Lock her Up!” The speaker noted that his army service had taken him all over the world, including to the Middle East, and offered a message to foreigners with ideas of moving to his country. “You come to Nevada, you’ve got to want to be an American!” he roared. “If you say you want to come to America, and you say you want to make them Muslims, I say, no way, you keep your ass home!” The polite, silver-haired party workers at his side cheered.

Then came Donald Trump Jr., in jacket and jeans; no tie. Greeted like royalty, he talked of the selflessness of his father in running for the presidency, and then quickly moved to the “stuff” that had been coming out about his father, and how “sick of it” the family was. Why, the younger Mr Trump demanded to know, was the media not interested in “the O’Keefe videos”? On Fox News, conservative talk radio and the right-wing internet, James O’Keefe is a well-known figure, famed for using hidden cameras to record left-wing activists saying stupid and in some cases corrupt things about rigging voter registration drives and elections. The national press has reported his latest videos, and how they seem to show two left-wing activists discussing how elections might conceivably be rigged, while noting that Mr O’Keefe also has a history of selectively and misleadingly editing his films.

Mr Trump Jr. was on a roll, however. It is he said, “disgusting” that the mainstream media is not covering these scandals. He referred to a story that his father has raised in campaign speeches, alleging that Russian interests paid Bill Clinton large sums shortly before the State Department signed off on the sale of 20% of American uranium to Russia. Fact-checkers have patiently debunked this narrative, which comes from a book “Clinton Cash”, written by a conservative journalist. There is no evidence of links between donations to Mr Clinton and the Clinton Foundation and the sale of Uranium One, a firm with some uranium assets in America (but many more in Kazakhstan). American uranium is not now under Russian control, and the story was investigated in several tough pieces by the New York Times.

But in the echo chamber of the conservative media, this convoluted tale is a simple conspiracy. The media “won’t talk about essentially treason. Corruption at the highest levels of government,” declared Mr Trump. Then come the opinion polls which show his father losing. “I am not naïve about numbers,” Mr Trump said several times, then each time challenged data with anecdote. He talked of meeting shy Trump supporters in airports and at hotels where he stays. These quiet backers are a diverse bunch, he reported. “People, not the ones the mainstream media will tell you are his supporters: females, Hispanics, African-Americans. All ages.” Only last week, he said, a man of 83 had told him that he had never voted in his life before, but would be voting now. Why was this not being covered in the “disgusting press”?

When the crowd was invited to ask questions, they ranged from gushing: “I’d like to thank your family for going through the hell you are going through” to a range of conspiracy theories. A young man reported reading that voting machines in 16 states are “owned by George Soros”. The name of that billionaire and big donor to progressive causes stirred growls. Mr Trump’s reply was careful. Well, he said, “a big fan” of Mr Soros seems to own those. But then, not wanting to crush the questioner, he went on: “I don’t know how I’d check that. I guess the problem is, nothing surprises me anymore.”

The younger Trump offered one allegation of his own. Pondering Bernie Sanders, he expressed dismay that in an election cycle dominated by calls for change, Democrats had “cheated the change candidate, Bernie Sanders.” Not content with fanning the idea that Mr Sanders was robbed of the nomination, though he lost it by several million votes, Mr Trump went on to refer to a recent purchase of a holiday home in Vermont that sparked scornful headlines on the right, accusing Mr Sanders of fat-cat caviar socialism. In Mr Trump’s telling this became something close to an allegation of corruption. “Now he’s got a nice beach house. He’s been bought and paid for, and that’s a shame.”

This caused no ripples at all in the crowd. Faith in an alternative reality has become the vernacular of everyday conservative activists in places such as Nevada. Take Lawrence Matlock, a retired photographer from Wyoming at the victory office, who politely explained how he thinks Mr Trump is doing better than the polls because “if you go to his rallies, the enthusiasm is there.” Mr Matlock, who was patient and generous with his time, explained that Mrs Clinton had to be defeated to preserve gun rights under the Second Amendment, and free speech under the First Amendment. “Hillary Clinton has said that in order for us to succeed, we have to drop all our traditional Christian values,” he added. Lexington could, and perhaps should, have asked where precisely Mr Matlock had read that (inaccurate) quote. But gloom suddenly made him give up, thank Mr Matlock, write down his name, and move on. This dialogue of the deaf will not end in November.