Note: This is an assignment for my MCO 425 class.
Birtherism is a conspiracy theory that started due to people questioning the legitimacy of former President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship. The original smear campaigns could barely agree on Obama’s alleged origins; some say that he was born in Kenya, while others say he lost his U.S. citizenship when he lived in Indonesia as a child. The controversy caused the Obama campaign to release copies of his Hawaiian birth certificate publicly. Birthers—followers of the birtherism conspiracy—claimed that the birth certificates were forged. While the conspiracy died down, other notable politicians such as Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris became victims of similar claims.
Most people trace the origins of birtherism to Illinois political candidate Andy Martin. Then, Republican and anti-Obama Democrat politicians began to question the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship. Notable websites, online forums and radio shows began to parrot the theories, exposing them to a wider audience. It only started to grow in 2009, when conservative commentator Lou Dobbs urged Obama to release his birth certificate on his CNN show. The birtherism conspiracy exploded in 2011, when prominent media figure and current President Donald Trump publicly claimed he doubted the validity of Obama’s citizenship. Trump went on to claim that he had proof that Obama was not a U.S. citizen, but he later conceded and stopped supporting the theory in 2016.
In the end, Politico reports that in a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, 51% of Republicans believed Obama was not a natural-born citizen. Many events led to this outcome, but I would like to focus on the art of persuasion first.
“The Language of Persuasion” by the New Mexico Literacy Project highlights persuasive techniques used by both individuals and big companies. A basic persuasion technique I can immediately identify is “Experts.” Many politicians, chief justices, and journalists vouched for the validity of the theory. They supported the claims and urged Obama to prove his citizenship. As regular people, we are more likely to trust people if they have proven experience. Why wouldn’t people trust the politicians who create their laws and the journalists they watch on TV? As soon as experts hopped on the birtherism train, it was bound to reach the mainstream.
I’d like to argue that an advanced persuasion technique that led to the rise of birtherism was “Timing.” Philip Klinkner in “The Causes and Concequesces of ‘Birtherism’” points out that Google searches surrounding Obama’s birth peaked during his election campaigns and Donald Trump’s statements in 2011. When someone as notable as Obama is currently in people’s minds, the controversies and theories surrounding him would also be highlighted. This also means more people would be exposed to the conspiracy theory due to its current relevance in the news cycle.
While birtherism has mostly died down from its peak, the conspiracy theory reemerged in small groups with new targets. In 2020, Trump questioned the validity of Kamala Harris’s eligibility to be Vice President, which led to a revival of birtherism for a short time. And in 2024, Trump fueled birtherism theories against Nikki Haley when he questioned her eligibility to run for president.
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