Why It Matters

After President Obama released his long form birth certificate yesterday, in an impossible attempt to quell the crazy birther conspiracy that has been bubbling up for the last three years, fueled by wingnuts and fear mongers and stoked by mealy-mouthed Republican politicians, I wrote a post out of anger and posted it to Facebook.

Soon enough a friend commented on Facebook, and thought that this issue wasn't serious, it was technically a rule in the Constitution, but so what? Would it really be such a big deal if President Obama weren't a citizen? Don't we have bigger problems in the country than to waste time dealing with this nonsense? Of course, the answer is yes. But when nearly half of the country's Republican voters doubt the legitimacy of the person holding the office of the President of the United States, and there is tacit approval by their party's leaders by not denouncing it, and it's being poked and prodded like a scab by a complicit media, something else is going on.

Here was my response:

We care because since the very beginning, those that are afraid of "the other" have been trying to delegitimize this president. They're even passing laws in states specifically for the purpose of omitting Obama's name from the ballot.

You may not consider it technically important and I understand that there are much more important things to worry about, but there are a lot of people out there who will do or say anything to undermine the leader of the free world. Let that sink in for a minute.

And now the very same people that have clamored about wanting to see the long form birth certificate are claiming is a forgery, it isn't good enough, he was adopted, and even asking for his school records now. When is enough enough? Is Donald Trump going to release his tax returns now as he promised to do? If we see Obama's school records, do we now get to see George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard records?

And don't dismiss that this is all ultimately about race. While Obama's birth certificate proved that he is an American citizen born in the United States, it also proved that he's still not white, so the fight will live on.

Yes, it's not about a Constitutional violation, it's about race. Always has been. Otherwise, the issue would have been settled with his long form release. But it's only caused the freaks to double down on the crazy. You don't have to look far for examples so I won't innumerate them here.

But this video of Baratunde Thurston's reaction to yesterday's news and the despicable actions of Donald Trump taking credit for it is why this story is important and why it matters.