Speaking of birtherism, there’s no denying that Donald Trump’s rise in Republican polls has been meteoric since he started beating the birther drum. I don’t think that the Donald is serious about running or that he would fare very well as an actual candidate, but as Steve M suggests, this sends a strong signal to other Republicans that embracing birtherism can give their candidacy a shot in the arm. I’d be surprised if we don’t see someone like Bachmann, Cain, or Santorum jump on the issue in the early primaries and caucuses. This could put the real establishment candidates — Romney, Barbour, Pawlenty — in a bind. Reject birtherism and lose support in the primaries, embrace it and hurt your party and your general election chances.
My guess is that the Republican nominee will be forced to at least deep his or her toes in the birther water to get through the primaries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d put twenty bucks on Santorum. He’s dumb, desperate and has a mean streak under that vapid howdy-doody demeanor.
dmsilev
The “mainstream” candidates will probably try to thread the needle by being “birther curious”. They’ll say things like “I can understand why some people are concerned about this” and similar vague statements. Dog-whistle enough to not drive away the true believers during the primaries, but don’t say anything definitive that could come back to bite them later on.
dms
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Palin just showed you the way.
Any serious candidate will have to reject pureform birtherism.
The conservative elite has made a full court press to suppress birtherism from CPAC 2010 to CPAC 2011. It has not worked, there are more birthers in the GOP base now than a year ago.
Birtherism is subliminated racism, because overt racism is a social taboo in contemporary American culture.
Independents don’t like it, minorities don’t like it, and youth doesn’t like it…because racists are not cool. You can no longer win a general election without some part of those demographics.
Any prospective GOP candidate that endorses pureform birtherism is not actually running. A come-to-jesus moment after the primaries can’t play well.
Palin just rejected birtherism, while weasel wording for the base. That is why I think she is running, and Trump is not.
gypsy howell
Third possibility: they all promote birtherism, and soon it will become the default belief system for most of the country, and all of the media. Non-believers will be harangued and portrayed as unAmerican nutcakes, sort of like atheists.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Yeah, it’s simply amazing and disgusting how easily Birtherism was re-mainstreamed. All because of a famous face and enough people begging for a reason to kick some liberals in the teeth.
What a stupid fucking country we have.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Or perhaps just dangle a foot near the pool, rather than dipping to go for a partial birther baptism? It all gives me a bit of a headache, but then I’ll go to Walgreens for tylenol and ask for my Faux News alerted pap smear and breast exam while I’m there. O/T, but I’m hoping one of my FaceBook active friends will post about it there, because I really believe it can get some media coverage if enough women inquire at enough Walgreens stores.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Birtherism is this primary season’s abortion/creationism shibboleth.
It is just a purity test for bubba support.
Elisabeth
Bachmann sort of went there last night by “taking the president at his word” that he was born here but then saying:
Mark S.
Is Trump any smarter than Sarah Palin?
I don’t think even Republican presidents are allowed to tax other countries, but even if he means tariffs, that would violate about 300 treaties we’ve signed with the rest of the world (WTO, etc.).
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@gypsy howell: no. independents, minorities and youth won’t vote for pureform birthers.
Impossible to win the WH without some part of those demographics.
Lev
My bet is on the “serious” candidates doing what they’re already doing. But Trump truly is a revelation. I seriously doubt he can focus solely on birtherism for ten months, and he’d be a shit candidate in Iowa for sure. But the truth is that Trump just isn’t that bad of a politician. He found the big issue that nobody else would touch, and made it his own. It’s good, if reprehensible, politics. He’s shown that he’s willing to look like a monster to win support, which is important in my view.
gypsy howell
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
They will if they believe it. You think after The Donald and every other republican clown asserts birtherism as fact for the next 15+ months, and the media doesn’t challenge anyone on it, ever, that people won’t start to believe it’s true? You have a far better opinion of the average person’s ability to see through bunkum than I do.
Zifnab
Does it, though? Birtherism strikes me as a general non-issue for most voters. It’s the sort of thing you can make off-the-cuff jokes about to rally the base without ever staking a claim on policy one way or the other.
If anything Birtherism is the perfect platform for a Republican to run on, because it means absolutely nothing. What is your entitlement policy? How do you stand on military occupation in Afghanistan / Iraq / Libya? When is it appropriate to raise taxes?
We can’t tell you, because we’re still too busy chasing the Governor of Hawaii around demanding the long form certificate.
Zifnab
@Elisabeth:
Is it me, or does the Birther argument sound a lot like the run up to the Iraq War? If Saddam has nothing to hide, then why won’t he show us his nuclear weapons program? Show us the nukes! Show us the nukes! We won’t stand around patiently waiting forever.
Elisabeth
@Zifnab:
Apparently Trump is also willing to rely on faulty intelligence gained from someone who really doesn’t have an axe to grind. Just don’t look too hard at that man behind the curtain.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@gypsy howell: But it is not believable. …except to the GOP base.
And it is emminently mockable. Stewart/Colbert/SNL skits, CNN even mocks it.
What is interesting to me is the reverse on birtherism. A year ago such stalwarts as AllahP and Charles Krauthammer were actively trying to discourage it.
They seem to have given up.
They can’t switch off the racism, and the birthers have plausible deniability to deny they are racists….to themselves at least.
Its fascinating.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Elisabeth: yup. she is running. she rejected pureform birtherism while giving plausible deniability to the base, just like Palin did.
gypsy howell
@Zifnab:
And isn’t it the case (and honestly, I’m not sure, because I have tried hard not to get too wrapped up in this nonsense) that Obama HAS shown his birth certificate multiple, multiple, multiple times, but the birthers just pretend they haven’t seen it?
It does remind me of the Iraq War bullshit:
“Why has Saddam kicked out the inspectors??”
“He didn’t. They’re there, and they can’t find anything.”
“BUT IF HE HAD NOTHING TO HIDE, HE WOULDN’T HAVE KICKED OUT THE INSPECTORS!”
“But the inspectors ARE still there, they just can’t find any… oh christ, nevermind; I’m arguing with an insane person.”
Elisabeth
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I wish someone would ask her or Boehner why, now that the Republicans have control of the House, no one has started hearings into the matter. If the President’s legitimacy is in question why haven’t they done something about it?
Quiddity
The smart thing for Romney, Barbour, and Pawlenty to do is to joke about it. Never take it seriously, as Trump pretends to do, but joke, joke, joke. That will probably be enough to rope in the birthers.
Elia Isquire
I don’t think Bachmann will need to, at least at the start, but I’m sure both Santorum and Cain will dance with that devil.
Roger Moore
@Zifnab:
But that’s exactly where Trump screws them. Once a serious candidate has made birtherism a major campaign issue, the rest of the candidates will be forced to take public positions. If they back it, they’ll look ridiculous in the general election. If they deny it, they’ll lose the all important crazy wing of the party. If they try to thread the needle, they risk losing both ways.
The same general thing is true of any batshit crazy idea that appeals to the 27%ers. It will be hard for any candidate to win the nomination without keeping the crazy wing of the party satisfied, but the more red meat they throw to the crazies the worse they’ll look to the rest of the country. That’s why it’s in the Democrats best interest to have as many crazy candidates as possible in the Republican primary. They’ll force the primary campaign to be about a whole bunch of insane stuff that will drive independents into Obama’s camp.
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He would make a good serial killer. If one were casting for serial killers.
Or he could be a bottom in a gay bondage video. His agent needs to check around the Valley once his campaign is toast.
Paul in KY
@gypsy howell: Oh yeah, I remember that. Good times…
Dave N.
What are the odds that Trump is trolling the GOP and its base? Maybe just to see how far he can push it before someone in the media actually points out that he is being completely ridiculous.
But it does have the added benefit of pushing other potential GOP candidates toward crazy-stupid territory.
Shawntos
I think his jump in the polls has nothing to do with Birtherism but more to do with he has the name recognition and he is actively campaigning. Seriosuly, he is the only big name out there at the moment while Palin, Romney and Huckabee are sitting back waiting to announce the possibility of running.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Elisabeth: someone should suggest that at hotair or free rebublic.
;)
JC
Dave N
I often think this. I’m sure I remember years ago the Donald mocking Bush and ‘the crazies’ of the rightwing, in some form or manner – but maybe that was just the foreign policy wing – the neocons – of the party.
Chris
Logically speaking, I’m not so sure that it should, actually. I would have thought that there’s a chunk of the GOP base that would swoon for the first candidate to really embrace birtherism, and then that’s *it* — if you assume the birther segment is a
stableconsistent percentage, it’s not like they’re going to migrate from Candidate X to Candidate Y to Candidate Z as each jumps onto the birther bandwagon, are they? Isn’t “embracing birtherism” a shot in the arm that is only going to work once, in only one candidate’s arm? (I mean, unless the poster-boy for birtherism du jour happens to quit/recant, in which case those voters would, under this theory, be free to find new heroes.)On the other hand, I thought that once Fox News sucked in the right-wing wackos of the world, that would be their niche, and it wouldn’t inspire other networks appeal to the same wackos, since they can’t watch two channels at the same time, and I thought there would be no percentage in copying them in search of the same limited number of wacko loyalists… but then again, in the last few years CNN has hired both Beck and Eric “You mean it’s okay to call Supreme Court justices I don’t like goatfuckers? And be a paid analyst here? Awesome!” Erickson, so I suppose I should not expect the media to resist the temptation to chase such a specific, ideologically-defined portion of the viewing public, even when logic dictates it shouldn’t be available. (Granted, you can watch multiple shows on multiple networks, but how are voters going to support more than one candidate? Not that I expect this to deter media fascination with birtherism as a political toy.)
And I think this means Romney has to be the next out of the establishment closet in favor of birtherism, if only to keep up with Trump and chase the lion’s share of the remaining birthers. Also, he’s got to be concerned about his vulnerability on “Obamacare=Romneycare!” charges (except they’ve got the odd trait of being relatively accurate, at least as far as GOP attacks go, so it may be hard for the media to cover; what would they do with reality-based anti-Republican attacks, even from other Republicans? The next time they handle such things will be the first.)