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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “Donald Trump is a…birther and bully.” Birther? Really? My comments: I get you. Is “birther” even a word? Well, it is a relatively new coinage and if you follow American politics, you’ll be able to pick this word up in no time. “No time” is an exaggeration but the truth is, “birther” does come up in the news now and then, quite often actually in the current US election cycle. First, definitions. Birther is a word referring to a person who doubts the birthplace of President Barack Obama. Birthers, as these people are known, don’t believe Obama was born in Hawaii. They claim he was born in Kenya or elsewhere. The long and short of it is, if he was not born in Hawaii, hence America, he would not be eligible to run for the Presidency in accordance with the constitution. Birthers came onto the scene in 2008, when Obama first joined the fray to run to become the first black American President. Oh, Obama is black. I should’ve mentioned this fact sooner because the fact that Obama is African American sums everything up. He is black and many white Americans don’t want to see someone of that skin color lead their country. Their country. Yeah, that’s about it. Many conservative white Americans just could not accept it, and so they got the rumor mill moving. Had Obama been a pale face (as Native Indians used to call whites), then nobody would’ve raised an eyebrow – and so you know this is actually more about race than the constitution. | 
