After this week, anyone who still believes the online conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk possesses either a dangerously low IQ or an irreparably broken moral compass.

That’s because the pre-trial hearing now in progress for Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Kirk in front of hundreds of students at Utah Valley University, is collapsing the madness in real time.

During his short life, the founder of Turning Point USA engaged in good-faith debates with young people on a wide variety of topics, and he did so in a cheery and civil manner.

Agree with him or not, Kirk epitomized the best of American civic tradition.

Candace Owens, the grifter podcaster who’s dedicated her popular show to promoting a string of unhinged conspiracy theories about Kirk and Robinson, represents the opposite.

Owens’ attacks have inspired scores of similar podcasts, spurring hundreds of thousands of listeners to become obsessive self-appointed forensic scientists, ballistics experts and criminal investigators — all out to prove that Robinson was merely a “patsy” for darker secretive forces.

Which forces? Need you ask?

Jewish ones, of course: Owens almost immediately began floating the possibility that Israelis had murdered Kirk.

Tucker Carlson and other antisemitic podcasters began dipping their toes in these familiar waters, too.

Bereft of decency, Owens has also regularly implied that Charlie’s wife Erika had something to do with her husband’s death, instigating a raging online mob into harassing and mocking the widow and mother of two young children.

Owens has spread the idea that Robinson, the 22-year-old gamer, wasn’t even on the Utah Valley University campus when Kirk was shot.

Well, during pre-trial hearings this week, prosecutors presented surveillance footage of Robinson stalking the campus all that day.

Owens has often claimed she doesn’t believe Kirk could have been shot with a bullet from the .30-06 rifle that Robinson allegedly used; more likely, she’s insisted, he was killed by an exploding microphone or some other device she conjured up in her demented imagination.

In court this week, prosecutors presented the medical examiner’s autopsy report that carefully detailed how Kirk had died from a single gunshot wound to the neck.

We already know that the bolt-action rifle used to assassinate Kirk belonged to Robinson’s grandfather.

We know that Robinson’s DNA was on the rifle, as well as on the towel found wrapped around the weapon, and that he threw the gun away near the shooting.

We know that the hard-left Robinson had an ideological motive to murder Kirk.

Not only is Robinson on camera casing the school and murder site, but he was also recorded interacting with Turning Point USA employees.

Oh, and Robinson confessed to both his lover and his parents before turning himself in to the FBI.

On Thursday, the court heard testimony from Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s boyfriend, who recalled the alleged killer fretting that the gun’s serial number would trace it back to him.

Pretty damning.

Believing Robinson is a “patsy” means believing that the White House, the FBI director, local Utah police, medical examiners, Charlie’s widow, a bunch of Charlie’s friends, multiple Turning Point employees, bodyguards, school officials, Robinson’s parents, Robinson’s boyfriend and many others were all in cahoots with whoever was pulling the strings.

Millions of people will keep on doing just that.

Conservative commentator Christopher Rufo says this week’s court proceedings will “expose a lot of the worst grifters and psychopaths on the right, and the audience will eventually feel burned and start to turn on them.”

“We’re at the top of the market for right-wing conspiracy slop,” he predicted.

That would be the best outcome.

But it’s unlikely.

Sure, some genuinely naïve listeners may have been gulled into falling for Owens’ manic nonsense.

And sure, the trial might suck some of the macabre entertainment value out of the case.

But conspiracists, often under the impression that “just asking questions” is a virtue in and of itself, rarely let facts get in the way.

A conspiracy theory is a never-ending string of half-truths, threaded together to create a narrative that’s impossible to disprove.

Conspiracy theories only grow with every denial.

And when they can no longer grow, the conspiracist just moves on to the next enticing topic.

What the podcast grifters have probably learned from this sorry episode is that perpetuating “slop” translates into a lot of money and a big audience.

They saw how many influencers could be silenced for fear of the mob — and how some, like podcaster Megyn Kelly, would be willing to join their racket.

Shame alone won’t put a stop to this poison.

Until the rest of us forcefully stigmatize, mock and explicitly reject the people who spread this garbage, they will persist.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. X: @davidharsanyi