This isn't *just* racist birther nonsense; it's also whataboutism and a smokescreen for Trump.
Eastman's argument hinges on the idea that it would be UNTHINKABLY TERRIBLE to have a president with divided loyalties upon whom we cannot count for the faithful execution of duties.
Eastman's argument hinges on the idea that it would be UNTHINKABLY TERRIBLE to have a president with divided loyalties upon whom we cannot count for the faithful execution of duties.
What @DrJohnEastman wants us to do is define the question of loyalty and the question of faithful execution of duties to be something that resides in the parentage of the office-seeker, not something that resides in... well, loyalty and execution.
Is this "identity politics"?
Is this "identity politics"?
Under Eastman's rubric, Donald Trump is fit to be president because racists agree that his parents belonged here. That's what loyalty to the country is. That's what faithful execution of the duties of the office mean.
The more racists have questions? The less fit or faithful.
The more racists have questions? The less fit or faithful.
Eastman is offering a cobbled together ad-hoc rationale for not just saying the quiet part loud but elevating the quiet part to the level of Constitutional law, and he's doing it in a way that takes the most obvious objections to Trump off the table for him, and people like him.
Following a contemptuous snort and accurately labeling him a peddler of racist conspiracy theories, the second best way to refute his argument is pointed out in his own article: Senator Harris couldn't serve in the senate if she weren't a citizen.
And as he points out, she never underwent naturalization, which means she is a natural born citizen of these United States. As he also points out, all current applications of our law agree that she would be.
Dr. John Eastman has obliterated his own argument, to the extent that he has one, twice over. It's racist garbage that is only being offered now for nakedly partisan political purposes, to give cover and comfort to a grotesquely unqualified, disloyal, and unfaithful incumbent.
