a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by YourMatt
YourMatt  ·  2963 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Presidential Debate Thread

I got up and did some other stuff as soon as I heard any birther comments coming up. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. I get that it makes Trump look like an idiot, but there are plenty of other important topics that can do that as well. It's a non-issue that's really annoying to see is a dominant topic in the election news. I feel the same about Hillary's emails. That matters more, but it still doesn't matter.





ecib  ·  2963 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think there are a large number of people that view it as a racist attack on the first black president, with no basis in reality, kept alive for years by DJT himself, and therefore vitally relevant. Especially combined with the reality that DJT was personally sued twice by the Department of Justice for not letting black people rent homes in his buildings, there is a sizable contingent of Americans for whom this matters. You may disagree with the characterization of his motivations, but a lot of folks don't see it that way. If they are right about that, it is one of the more important questions that could be asked (and he still didn't answer it but dodged it twice during the debate).

HRC's emails also aren't as big a deal in isolation but again, like Donald, they tell us something about the very nature of the candidate and provide a map for how they will govern.

Personally I think HRC (emails) and Trump (taxes) are both candidates who couldn't give two shits about transparency to the public (and will govern that way), and that Don is fundamentally a racist (housing discrimination, birther, refusing to swiftly disavow support from David Duke, etc).

YourMatt  ·  2963 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Sorry, this is probably a silly question, but I haven't followed the "birther" topic at all even when it was commonly in the news. What connection does it have to race? If you're not a born citizen of the US, then you can't be president of course, but I haven't seen how race was a factor since the same issue of an unreleased birth certificate could have applied if Obama was white.

user-inactivated  ·  2962 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Obama is a secret Muslim, his middle name is Hussein after all. Even though he was an active member in a Black Nationalist Evangelical Christian Church for 20 years. He was born in Africa, because he is black (and in Kentucky people believe this shit) even though his birth was better documented than my mom's; his birth announcement was in the papers and his mother was a patient in the hospital. This all at the same time that the guy he is running against. McCain, WAS NOT BORN IN THE USA Note for citizenship, if your parents are in the military and you are born on a military isntallation, you are considered a natural US citizen. Ted Cruz, interestingly enough is not a natural US citizen.

The "Birther" people are mostly racist. I say this as someone who has daily interactions with multiple birthers. And he is a Democrat, so all slander against him is fair game.

ecib  ·  2962 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah I forgot about that too. McCain was actually born outside the country and wasn't subjected to this. You're brown and born here you're not actually one of us. You're white and born in another country you're as American as apple pie.

ecib  ·  2963 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah, yeah. So basically The birther movement began out of the alt-right and white nationalist movement here in the US. it was this massive years long smear campaign directed at the first black president that wasn't directed at other presidents. He was born in the US, there was never even a HINT of a suggestion that he wasn't, his state birth certificate was publicly available in short form, and he even released the long for version because of the conspiracy. All this is stuff that no white candidate was forced to do, not even ones like Ted Cruz, whom it is well known was actually born in Canada. It has as much to do with the people pushing the conspiracy as it does the asymmetrical standard applied to him. And again, even when he produced his long form birth certificate DJT continued to publicly push the notion that he wasn't American for years and years after.

user-inactivated  ·  2962 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I live where the Birther people are loud and proud. Almost every one of them is an Evangelical, ALL of them are far right wing and most of them are what I would call extremely racist. There are even some black preachers here in the Ohio Valley who call him a Muslim from Africa because of Obamacare murdering nego babies in Planned Parenthood Abort-o-Plexes. Link to the crazy