A lot of conservatives are authoritarians that value group cohesion above most everything else. Going against the group feels bad in a deep way, I think, so all sorts of justifications will be made to stay with the group.

Honestly, as far as I’m concerned that’s a form of stupid. Kind of funny given the boomer cliche of “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too?”. It turns out yes, a lot of people would.