Our Foreign President Barack Obama: The Racial Logics of Birther Discourses

The Rise of Presidential Eschatology: Conspiracy Theories, Religion, and the January 6th Insurrection

“…The Birther movement and the “born again racism” of the Tea Party marked the contemporary shift of conspiracy arguments becoming a mainstream method of political attack (Enck-Wanzer, 2011). As a narrative expressing racial anxieties, Birtherism took on the veneer of concerns about Constitutionality to fuel a white supremacist backlash against the Obama presidency, arguably leading to the election of the conspiracy theory’s chief proponent, Donald Trump (Howell, 2012; Pham, 2015). Conspiracy theories in this sense function as what Mercieca (2019) called “weaponized communication,” defined as “the strategic use of communication as an instrumental tool and as an aggressive means to gain compliance and avoid accountability” (p. 266).…”

Identity propaganda: Racial narratives and disinformation

“…As Inderpal Grewal (2005: 10) argues with regard to the concept of citizenship, “privileges of citizenship are extended unevenly—to women, minority religious groups, and racial and sexual minorities.” Race-based and anti-immigration birther discourses, perpetuated by political figures such as Trump, became especially prominent during Obama’s first run for president and presidency (Jardina and Traugott, 2019) and have continued with Kamala Harris’s bids for higher office. As Vincent Pham (2015) argues, these strategic messages “manipulate rationality, reinforce a White racial state, and activate anxieties over an increasingly multi-racial and global society” (Pham, 2015: 86). In an effort to mitigate the threat to white hegemony, purveyors of identity propaganda such as Eastman use othering narratives to undermine the autonomy and power of the racial “other” and assert white dominance.…”

New Places, New Races: Neocolonialism and Postracial Racism in The Young Adult Dystopian Series, The 100

“…In this dystopic future, colonialism affects anybody , and signifiers of blackness can be relieved of any formality of raciology and racism, like questions of birtherism or origin and suspicions of otherness based on name. As Vincent Pham explains, “new” criticisms of citizenship include the bastardization of postracial discourse twisted and mutilated, a dog whistle used by conservative pundits. For Pham, “Birtherism discourse reinforces a postracial citizenship” that “perpetuates racist discourse against racialized (and hence Othered) bodies even as it actively avoids and omits explicit racial signifiers” (95).…”