I Thought Birtherism Was Stillborn -- But It's Alive! (part one)

Back in 2011, thanks to Donald Trump, Birtherism reached its zenith when he decided to pick up that freak flag, wave it high and make it the defining issue in his run for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America.

Up until that point, the "lamestream" media had reported on the authenticity of Obama's Certificate of Live Birth when he produced that document (back in '08) in response to some of Hillary Clinton's supporters who questioned his eligibility to run for the highest office in the country. But because that document was authenticated by various sources (including the hospital that issued it and released a copy to the public) and says explicitly that "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding", the Hillary supporters accepted it and then dropped the issue, and so did the press. For the most part.

However, the most rabid right-wingers in the country were not satisfied. They sensed that a perfidy of the highest order was being perpetrated on the American public. Evidence began coming to light that Obama was born in Kenya -- or was it Malaysia? A birth certificate finally surfaced that proved Obama was indeed born in Kenya!
That Certificate of Live Birth was a fake!

Unfortunately, the Kenyan birth certificate turned out to be the fake, not the Certificate of Live Birth.
The Birthers easily brushed aside the phony Kenyan birth certificate as they unleashed a slew of wild accusations about the Kenyan/Atheist-Muslim/Marxist/Socialist/America-hating racist and community organizer.

Every one of the accusations was thoroughly debunked by various fact checking organizations.
This only made the Birthers more convinced that Obama was born in Kenya and that the lying Kenyan commie was being protected by the liberal media complex. Dentist/lawyer Orly Taitz came to the rescue with a bunch of amazingly crazy accusations against Obama that included the allegation that he was a closeted homosexual who had all of his former lovers killed.
By this time the mainstream media had stopped paying attention.

All was not lost, however. There was still Fox News.
Then... enter Donald Trump.
The Donald had "read things" and "heard things" about this Barack Hussein guy. Really bad things.
As we've since discovered, The Donald is not the kind of person to let treachery of this nature stand.
At every press conference and at every opportunity he demanded that the first black President show us proof that he was born in the US. None of the evidence Obama or others had presented so far towards that regard was believable.
Only his long form Birth Certificate would do.

The Donald made such a big fucking deal over this that Obama actually took time out from being the leader of the free world to produce his long form Birth Certificate. But the Birthers immediately recognized the "Certificate" as a badly manufactured forgery! They had incontestable proof that this was so!
Despite this "fact," Obama's presentation of the Birth Certificate seemed to take the wind from Trump's sails. It also seemed to signal the end of Trump's campaign. He dropped out soon afterwards.

While never admitting that Obama's Birth Certificate was real and only acknowledging that its authenticity was in doubt, Trump stopped talking about the issue that, heretofore, he wouldn't stop talking about. He didn't continue the fight for truth, justice and the American way that others in the Birther movement pushed forward with.

Trump's surrender seems uncharacteristic, especially when you look back on it after seeing more of him in action over the past year. After all, this is a guy who has never met a false right-wing allegation that he hasn't bought lock, stock, barrel and promoted like it had his name on it. His modus operandi has always been to double down on whatever outlandish thing he says, even after it's been proven false by numerous sources.
He never backs down. That's one of the many things the rabid right loves about him.
He did back down on this issue, though. Not completely but mostly.

My theory as to why?
In the world of far right-wing conservativism, you have your "mainsteam", run of the mill, irrational and delusional right-wingers.
Then you have your lunatic fringe -- completely deranged right-wingers.
The former group, much larger, is the Fox News watching, Limbaugh loving types.
The latter group needs the really hard stuff for their fix.
They get their "information" from the Internet and conspiracy theory web sites like World Net Daily.

Fox News and the radio talkers, while sympathetic to the Birthers and always ready to give them a platform, never really embraced Birtherism with, say, the same gusto that they tried to make their audience think that people on food stamps could somehow afford lobster dinners, crab legs and filet mignon with the $1.80 per meal they get from the government.
They stopped talking about Obama's birth certificate, too.

So, without the backing of the "mainstream" right-wing media, Trump risked looking really kooky, even among this group of conservatives, if he aligned himself with the lunatic fringe.
Plus, he would be subjecting himself to the kind of ridicule that President Obama dished out to him at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in 2011.
Let us relive that wonderful moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TwRmX6zs4
The look on Trump's face is priceless.

Despite the ridicule, I always thought Trump got off pretty easy considering the length, depth and breadth of his obnoxiousness during the whole birther affair. I thought he deserved to wear his birther allegations around his neck for the rest of his public life. I thought he deserved to be asked about "the unbelievable things" his investigators (whom he sent to Hawaii) were finding out about Obama with the same relentless persistence that he demanded to see Obama's Birth Certificate. This should have been an albatross for him.

Fast forward four years and here's Trump running again, this time exploiting conservatives' hatred -- no, wait. That's too strong a word. Not all conservatives hate. Some, I assume, are good people.
Let me rephrase that. ...exploiting conservatives' dislike of Mexicans and Muslims.

Now, by this time, the birther issue, regarding Obama, has faded considerably. And there is barely any mention of it. The few times the press has brought it up, Trump says that's in the past and he doesn't want to talk about it. Here's the thing, though. Ted Cruz is running for the nomination and he is now Trump's closest rival. Cruz's birth certificate says he was born in Canada and, so far, no one is claiming that it's a forgery.

Now, I can understand why the Birthers are keeping quiet about this because Cruz is the perfect candidate for them. You couldn't be any further to the right of him without being Attila the Hun. He's loud, hyperbolic and extremely obnoxious -- just like they are. He believes that the government is tyrannical and only wants to take away our freedoms (even though it is comprised of individual citizens, from all sectors of society, who attain office through open and fair elections, are subject to scrutiny and impeachment and must run for reelection every few years) just like they do.

What I find harder to understand is why Trump and the press are so quiet about this.
This puzzling question will be explored further in my next post.