I disagree. There's no way they would have changed their minds. It's just an excuse. A thin veneer of plausible deniability while they willingly keep their heads in the sand. The simple explanation is no one is that stupid, that fascist, but, maybe they are. Maybe this is the effect of a decades long campaign by conservative politicians & pundits to constantly gaslight America & try to keep the electorate uneducated.

Either way, people clinging to these obvious falsehoods are seditious at worst or useful idiots at best.