I wish that someone would explain to me how birtherism is considered racist. I mean the man had a foreign born non-U.S. citizen father and would not furnish a valid birth certificate (and still hasn't in my opinion). He may or may not have been born in Hawaii, but he was hiding something.
Yes, he did (
both the long and short versions). Trump had a foreign born mother? Big deal! "
Birther-ism" was Trump's way of trying to de-legitimize the Obama presidency. Just as Trump and his supporters resent what they refer to as the "
Russian hoax" for being an attempt to de-legitimize his own presidency, Obama and his supporters feel the same way about "
birther-ism" and despite some bold claims, Trump has never provided any evidence that Obama wasn't born in the United States. In 2011, Trump claimed that he had dispatched investigators to Hawaii to search for proof that Obama wasn't born in the United States and that these investigators supposedly relayed back to him that they "
couldn't believe what they were finding". Trump was strongly implying that he had uncovered proof that Obama's birth certificate was fraudulent. Trump also said that he would be holding a press conference in two weeks to unveil this "
proof". That was just another lie. That press conference never materialized, which makes me highly doubt that there ever even were any investigators sent to Hawaii. Trump is just a bull s***ter.
I believe that "
birther-ism" was a dog whistle to the Trump base of support. It has been a common theme throughout the Trump presidency that black people are somehow less American, less patriotic and less deserving of being in this country than whites. In Trump's mind, black people have no right to complain about the government (
as white people do) and should either be happy with what they have or "
go back to where they came from" - even if they were born in the United States. "
Birther-ism" is at the core of Trump's racism. Trump would have never questioned the legitimacy of a white President with a white European born father, who wasn't an American citizen. Trump saw potential to challenge Obama's American identity because Obama was black.