WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Conspiracy theorists believe that the Republican Party did not die from natural causes but was instead the target of an elaborately planned killing, a leading conspiracy theorist has confirmed.

Harland Dorrinson, whose basement walls are covered with photos of suspects in the killing of the G.O.P., has spent countless hours connecting those photos with different colors of yarn in the hopes that a larger pattern would emerge.

“Because the Republican Party is one hundred and sixty-one years old, it’s assumed that it was time for it to die,” he said. “The truth is, that’s exactly what the people who killed it want us to think.”

While some conspiracy theorists have focussed on the billionaire Donald J. Trump as the most likely suspect in the death of the Republican Party, Dorrinson favors a “two-killer” theory that involves Arizona Senator John McCain and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

“McCain tapped Palin to be his running mate, and that led directly to people like Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Donald Trump being considered credible candidates,” he said. “There is no logical reason why McCain would have chosen Palin unless he wanted to kill the Republican Party.”

In addition to the McCain-Palin cabal, Dorrinson is considering a host of other suspects, including the industrialists David and Charles Koch, the Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, and the novelist Ayn Rand.

“The only suspect I have definitively ruled out is Mitch McConnell,” he said. “No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where he accomplished something.”