BARACK OBAMA is a socialist who should be impeached. He may well have been born outside the United States, may be a racist who hates white people, and may also want the terrorists to win. In any case, he is indisputably less qualified to be president than Sarah Palin.

These are the views of the Republican mainstream, not the fringe, according to a poll conducted by Research 2000. When I say "is", more Republicans believe it than don't, and when I say "may be", I mean nearly as many Republicans believe it as disbelieve it. Bruce Bartlett throws up his hands: "between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid."

But let's unpack this a bit before we write off rational conversation forever. Just 24% of the country currently calls itself Republican. We're seeing dual-causation here: as the party's most fervent believers believe more ridiculous things, those sensible ones leave. The remainder reinforce each other in extreme beliefs. In any case, the important point is that we should be dividing each of these numbers by four, when we ask how many Americans believe them: 15% think Mr Obama is a socialist, 10% think he should be impeached, 8% think he's a racist, and so on. Those figures don't make me panic. Really, this should give Republicans more pause than anyone. The party-identification number is down over Mr Obama's first year, and beliefs like this aren't likely to turn that around. Anybody who doesn't already believe these things isn't going to start by watching Mr Obama govern.

And is Mr Bartlett right that 20-50% of this 24% is insane or stupid? I'd guess a big chunk of that group simply pays only passing attention to the news, not exactly reading the whole A section of their newspaper daily. So where do they get their views? Remember, though they don't read much, they're committed Republicans, having stayed with the badly battered ship. When they do tune in, they're likely to go for cable news or talk radio, and what they hear is only what Republican leaders—and we can include media leaders—tell them. If they'd learned the actual facts of things, and still concluded Mr Obama is a socialist racist foreigner, that would indeed make them insane. But they haven't. And not being a news junkie doesn't make them stupid, contra Mr Bartlett. They value their jobs, families and non-wonky hobbies over reading the New Yorker or eventhe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The conclusion that remains is that the Republican leadership (including that media leadership) is deeply irresponsible. When those passingly-informed people check in briefly, for the health of the country, they'd better be getting a few responsible messages to absorb. Instead, people in nice suits with great hair and a television gig—things that used to go along with sober authority—are telling them that the president cares more about Miranda-ising terrorist Muslims than he does about dead American babies. The viewers have never heard this kind of thing before. But this is not because of a once-in-a-lifetime radical president. It's because of a once-in-a-lifetime irresponsible party elite. Blame the bosses, not the masses.