The birther conspiracy persisted by denying plainly verifiable facts

Evidence

The birther conspiracy, which claims that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was ineligible for the presidency under the requirements of the Constitution, is a prime example of rejection of simple, verifiable facts. The conspiracy was born in 2008, the work of a California dentist, Orly Taitz. Within a year it was afloat—an identifiable bit of malicious flotsam swirling amid the larger current of opposition to Obama. In 2011 Trump became what the New York Times called “a nonstop ‘birther.’ ” On Fox News, he implored the president to prove his native birth: “Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” On NBC, Trump said, “I’m starting to think that he was not born here,” and, “He grew up and nobody knew him.” Over and over again, Trump asserted that he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to unearth information: “They cannot believe what they are finding.” Trump amplified the allegation of foreignness by suggesting that Obama was a secret Muslim: “He cannot give a birth certificate.… He doesn’t have a birth certificate, or, if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him.… Where it says ‘religion’ it might have ‘Muslim.’ ” (Birth certificates in the United States do not list religion.) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 237