Could Arizona’s Birther Bill Backfire?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Arizona’s Republican lawmakers seem bent on turning their state into ground zero for the right-wing fringe: the same day that the state GOP pushed through a radical bill that would require police to interrogate anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, the Arizona House embraced the “birther” conspiracy about President Barack Obama. On Monday, the state’s House voted for a provision that would require Obama to show his birth certificate to order to be included on the state’s ballot in the presidential election.

But the birther bill could potentially backfire against the Arizona GOP if the public comes to believe that such wacked-out extremism drives their entire agenda. While the Arizona GOP has yet to explicitly link its birther bill with the anti-immigrant drive, it seems clear that both initiatives spring from the same desire to play to the right-wing base. The same GOP leaders are behind both proposals, after all: Arizona Republicans passed its anti-immigration bill almost entirely along party lines, and three-quarters of the state’s GOP caucus supports the birther measure.

But as Dave Weigel notes, birther bill won’t radically empower a nation of conspiracy theorists; they’ll simply embarrass the legislators who’ve endorsed the measure by making them “the laughingstock of the nation,” as one Arizona Democrat puts it. Both the birther and anti-immigrant bills are forms of reactionary hysteria, but the anti-immigration legislation could actually cause substantive harm to Arizona residents. And the more these two campaigns are linked, the better.

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate