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It used to be we were all in on the joke.

You’d spot the grainy, black-and-white rendering of an alien or a photograph of Elvis on the cover of a tabloid and laugh or maybe roll your eyes, already knowing the punchline.

“I’m having an alien’s baby!” “Elvis is alive and working as my dentist!” Or in the best of both worlds, “I met Elvis when I was kidnapped by a UFO and now I’m having his baby!”

The vast, vast majority of us recognized these stories for what they were: nonsense clearly devoid of reality. We didn’t give them credibility or try to convince others they were true. We sure as hell didn’t devote space in the national discourse to the promotion of such half-baked ideas.

Oh, how times have changed.

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If you have no idea what I’m talking about, consider yourself fortunate. And sane. You’ve been smart enough to avoid the hellscape that’s the right-wing media, which is now pushing the idea that because Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are dating, the Super Bowl is rigged as part of some Democratic plot. Or on behalf of big pharma. Or … something.

“Just imagine if people were as dedicated to Jesus as they are professional sports. I think the country might look pretty different if that were the case. But sadly, as we know, it’s not,” Alison Steinberg, a host on One America News Network, ranted earlier this week.

“And perhaps that’s why we’re witnessing the crumbling and degradation of our once great nation. Instead, all we seem to care about are the celebrities and athletes propped up by the Hollywood elites and this ongoing theater,” she huffed, her voice rising in indignation. “This fake, carefully crafted show that the masses have been hypnotized by and can’t seem to turn off.

“The question is … why do the powers that be need this dynamic duo to sway the vote? Don’t they have enough dirty tricks up their sleeves as it is?”

OPINION:Did liberals put Taylor Swift and pro-vaccine Travis Kelce in the Super Bowl? Yes, we did.

OAN might be a bit player in the media landscape, but this lunacy isn’t limited to the wing-nut fringe. Fox News has been pushing similar garbage for weeks. Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Monday he thinks the fix is in and, as a result, the Kansas City Chiefs will win their — checks notes — second consecutive Super Bowl and third in five seasons.

And Mike Crispi, another right-wing pundit, posted the totally rational, not-at-all-crazy scenario where “Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

All righty then!

You all understand this is nuts, right? A conspiracy theory about the Super Bowl logo or suspicions the NFL scripts its season are one thing. This "stuff" is deep in tin-foil hat territory.

Sadly, though, it’s also not surprising. Swift and Kelce’s romance is a fever dream for the MAGA crowd.

She is smart and popular and powerful and, like most women and people her age, vehemently opposed to politicians who strip away fundamental rights. And because she’s so wildly popular, particularly with young women, she has the potential to sway this year’s election. He, meanwhile, promotes the vaccine that has made the COVID-19 pandemic manageable after it killed millions of people around the globe. Oh, he cries in public, too, and isn’t afraid to tell his brother he loves him.

That they’re now together, very happily and very publicly so, is both infuriating and terrifying to the right wing. When they see Swift and Kelce kissing on the field, as they did Sunday after the Chiefs won yet another AFC title, they don’t see a cute celebrity couple. They see a threat to all that is holy.

And by all that is holy, I mean their own power and influence.

“It is so scary. There was a recent poll, one-fifth of Taylor Swift fans said they would back whichever candidate that she endorsed,” Charly Arnolt of Outkick.com said on Fox, forgetting she’s not supposed to say the quiet part out loud.

It’s tempting to brush this off as more faux outrage by the MAGA crowd. Or to make fun of it because it’s so obviously absurd. The problem is there are people, a good number of them, who actually believe this nonsense. Who have lost all capacity for critical thinking and will buy whatever they’re told by Donald Trump and his sycophants in the right-wing media.

Including that the NFL, the same league that blackballed Colin Kaepernick and allowed a team to use a racist nickname, would risk its $18 billion a year dynasty by rigging the Super Bowl to benefit a Democratic presidential candidate and/or liberal ideology. (How personal autonomy and basic public health measures became liberal ideologies is a discussion for another day.)

The conspiracy theories about Swift and Kelce have as much legitimacy as alien babies and Elvis sightings and should be taken as seriously. But “The Super Bowl, staged by Pfizer and the Biden campaign” is like the lie about the 2020 election being stolen.

Believed by too many to be truth when it isn't remotely close.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.