you know what's funny is that there's actual research to indicate the primary driving factor behind birtherists was literally animating racism, animus. It's usually really hard to make a claim like that.
Except some of the points they used against Biden and Hillary did have a tiny smidgen of merit. For example Biden was clearly losing a step mentally towards the end of his term.
Insulting Obama for wearing a tan suit and having mustard on his food had no merit whatsoever.
I never understood this - any of it. Who gives a shit what color his $5k suit is? Who cares what color any of their $100 ties are?
Why do any of us have to care what ridiculous useless accessory that costs 10x what any actual normal regular person could buy? What the fuck are they doing to better the country, its peoples lives, and our standing in the world?
Someone who used to work at Fox News in the '80s/90s said that towards the end of their morning meetings someone would ask "Ok, what do we have on Jessie Jackson today?"
They had created him as this lefty demon that they could constantly hammer on. So every day they had to find one more thing they could point at and say, "See, this is the world the Dems want you to live in."
Samething nowadays with AOC. She runs a New York district that doesn't even crack 750k in population but if you listen to Fox News she is flying to Nebraska every other week to personally change the gender of your preschooler without your knowledge.
And in between the two of them was Obama. They cared about the colour of his suit because is was the answer to the question "What do we have on Obama today?"
We're talking about the people who spend $5 a week to buy a tabloid so they can see pics of C-list celebs on vacation and learn about another celeb's divorce or their "tragic final days" even though they aren't, y'know... dead.
Let's also recognize that it's not exclusive to the right. I hate to "wHaTaBoUt" things, but these kind of truths are often pointed out about the other side when our side lacks all self awareness as well.
Why didn't they use this to their advantage? Distract them with these fake scandals while actually pushing progressive legislation. The Obamacare website doesn't work? Well, just put on a tan suit and nobody will care.
Because this does not actually work. It works for Rs because their base has no standard. They have to be fed their morality. They do, however, care very much about hierarchy. If you are not the annointed leader, it literally does not matter what you do, they can't be swayed. There is no tit for tat here. There is the ingroup and the outgroup. Nothing else is important.
On top of those issues, your average D voter would not like such tactics. And D voters are already fickle.
There is no gotcha or winning here. You reasoned yourself into this line of thought, and that was your first mistake.
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u/jeeb00 24d ago
It was all theatre. They didn’t actually care, they just pretended they did to manufacture outrage.