The birther conspiracy framed Obama’s America itself as illegitimate

Evidence

And Trumpism, as the iconography of his movement demonstrates, has race at its core. Trump began his march to the White House as the chief proponent of the “birther” conspiracy, arguing relentlessly that the country’s first Black president was foreign-born and therefore illegitimate. … What began with the “birther” crusade ended with the charge that Barack Obama’s America itself was illegitimate and could not hold power. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 624

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘illegitimacy’ idiom here is the modern descendant of the question of who counts as a legitimate citizen — the core concept of the reframing argument.
• XREF: connects to: Birtherism delegitimated Obama by framing his presidency as unconstitutional — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 201; The birther conspiracy launched Trump’s political viability. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 160