I mentioned Donald Trump’s love of the ‘birther’ issue recently and was a little surprised at the defense of The Donald as a serious candidate. Without entering that discussion, let me note how very serious Trump is about the birther agenda:

Pushing back against calls from Republicans to abandon his new-found birther quest, Donald Trump snapped back Saturday at party leaders like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) who accuse him of being less than serious about his presidential ambitions, warning Republicans that abandoning the conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate will harm the party.

In an exclusive interview with TPM recorded before Trump spoke to what those in attendance called a record crowd at the Palm Beach County Tax Day Tea Party rally, Trump said Republicans like Cantor dismiss the birther issue at their peril.

“I think it’s a very bad thing for Cantor to have done,” Trump said, “because I’ll tell you, people love this issue especially in the Republican Party. And there’s something to what we’re saying.”

The sad thing is that Trump is probably right about what motivates the Republican base. It is not strictly the question about the land of his birth, but his otherness — name, skin color, Kenya, Indonesia and so on. If you doubt it moved people, see Arkansas, where Republicans ran against Obama from the top to the bottom of the state ticket and won in a historically Democratic state, despite unheard-of names and strange resumes.

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But, of course, none dare call any Obama opponent a racist.

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