Why do some people think Obama wasn't born in the

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Why do some people think Obama wasn't born in the US?

Short answer? Because they're credulous idiots.


It’s because if that were true, the whole chapter of American history (in which he won election to the white house twice, for eight years) would all be a bad dream, a null and void thing- and it would, if true, excuse a lot of behavior to and judgment of President Obama that could only otherwise be characterized as racist. Above nearly all else, this is about excusing that behavior, without blunting or denying its effect or intention.

To be eligible to serve as president, a candidate must be born in the USA, and be 35 years old, and win election. He did all of these things.

The fact that he won election (and his election was certified twice) is something a large cohort of white Americans devoutly wish had never happened. This cohort experienced the election of a black man as no small injury; it signaled the death knell of White America they’d so long been predicting as demographics tilt America ever slightly browner and Democratic.

The First Stage of Grief, of course, is denial. No! It can’t be! And they haven’t stopped. Indeed, the singular policy direction of the current administration has been to expunge every piece of Obama’s legacy that it can.

Denial isn’t a river in Egypt, it is a potent cognitive phenomenon- and they really wanted the whole Obama thing to be just a bad dream.

So, believing that it was fake, a fraud, and stuff like that was a source of hope and comfort for them- and they were willing to deceive themselves on any pretense in order to have it. And they’re quite aware that if they can manage to convince enough people that this was the story, they can win- and the winners write the history books.

It’s a hopeful incantation being cast across the population, who know full well that if they repeat it full-throatedly in enough numbers, a sizeable portion of the population is willing to second-guess themselves enough to believe it to be true.[1]

It’s also something that they maintain with prodigious levels of cognitive dissonance.[2

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