Many Americans’ racially and partisan motivated dislike forObama means they doubt his legitimacy as president

For much of Barack Obama’s presidential run and his subsequent two terms as president he has been dogged by accusations that he was not born in the US, and is therefore ineligible to be president. In order to explain the continuing prevalence of this view, despite the evidence to the contrary, Josh Pasek looks at whether or not such ‘birthers’ are motivated by partisanship of racial prejudice. They find that while on the surface the ‘birther’ view is motivated by party ideology and racism, such views actually lead people to dislike President Obama, and thus leaves them more open to accepting claims that he was not born in the US.