Fox News just reanimated birtherism
It remains a banal dog whistle among MAGA clowns to refer to former President Obama as “Barack HUSSEIN Obama,” middle name capitalised when writing it and emphasised when speaking it. We are supposed to be horrified and alarmed when reminded of his middle name. It’s supposed to communicate something awful about the man, something sinister, something disgraceful. After all, it’s the surname of the former dictator of Iraq, is it not? It’s a foreign name. It’s not an American name. And — this is finally the point — it’s not a WHITE name.
The idiots who gleefully use this nomenclature when speaking of the former President do so as if they’re saying something original and significant. They hurl it at us like a shuriken, as if they’re some kind of verbal martial artist. They’re actually dumb enough to believe they’ve scored a point of some kind.
Let’s face it, it’s racism lite. It’s a form of the N-word without actually saying the N-word. I suppose it would be like reminding me that my middle name is Aaron and therefore I must be Jewish. But they don’t do this kind of thing with white people. It’s the sort of thing they do when they deliberately mispronounce “Kamala.” It’s racism they can get away with — or so they “think.” They metaphorically hug themselves with delight. Oh, and aren’t they ever-so clever?
But as with Obama’s tan suit (and now Kamala’s tan suit!) it reminds us that it’s all they’ve got. They have nothing substantial so they must resort to undelineated innuendo, guilt by association with nothing. Bullshit, in other words. And because President Obama excoriated Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention, MAGAland has decreed that he must pay for it. They must make a-mends. So nothing less than birtherism has been resurrected for the occasion by no less a dirtbag than Jesse Watters of Fox News.
“Barack Obama, [is] still the godfather of this machine,” Watters proclaimed. “He gave us Joe Biden, his VP. He gave us Hillary, his Secretary of State. Then he couped Joe, put all his boys with Kamala’s team, and had his wingman holder vet Walz. Now, the guy’s a young 63, he’s going to be doing this for the next 25 years.”
No he’s not and no he didn’t. President Obama is retired. We the People tried to elect Hillary Clinton. We the People elected Joe Biden. We the People are going to elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the United States, and she (not Obama) picked Tim Walz as her running mate.
The suggestion that Obama is “in charge” is done specifically so they can say that a black man is in charge without actually saying that a black man is in charge. It’s why they chose Obama instead of Bill Clinton. They understand the underlying racist dog whistle. They understand that their putrid racist base hates Obama because he’s black, and they’re trying to incite them with racist fury.
And toward that end, believe it or not, Watters is resuscitating the discredited “birtherism” bullshit. “[Obama is] definitely going to interfere in this election,” Watters bleated like the brainless Trump-licking sheep that he is. “That’s why we’ll be sending Johnny [Belisario, Watters’ assistant] to Hawaii to get the truth about the birth certificate. This time, we will dig deep and find out what really happened.” Well nothing “really” happened. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1961. Hawaii had just become a state. That’s all.
But this is one of Donald Trump’s bullshit conspiracy theories, dug up in the middle of the rainy night and jazzed with electricity and taught to walk again. It was discredited by Barack Obama himself, to Trump’s extreme humiliation. So Watters is particularly pleased with himself that he thinks he’s getting revenge on Trump’s behalf. No doubt his Dear Leader will smile on him. It’s what Watters and other dirtbags just like him live for.
The only thing this crap is going to achieve is to turn off independent voters who know that birtherism is a dead and discredited non-issue. MAGA will love it, they will eat it up like sharks in a feeding frenzy. But MAGA can only vote once, and they’re voting anyway. This is why we are going to win. In their desperation, MAGA morons like Watters can’t even come up with something new. It’s the same old tired crap, and it’s not going to get them anywhere. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.