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I want you to hear Baratunde Thurston’s heartfelt message to Donald Trump and the media who enabled him. Be forewarned, it’s NSFW in places. While it will likely have no effect on those who most need to hear the message, it had a profound impact on me, and I think it will have one on you, too. In his intro he writes this: I then thought of this fetid, smug, hate-filled, wealthy white man taking credit for the release and yet still not being satisfied. It does not matter how long we’ve been in these United States. We will never be American. I was especially moved by his direct message to Donald Trump, a man who “was given everything” and lives the life he does with the freedom to do what he did because he was given everything. I don’t want to hear about The Apprentice . I don’t want to hear about your new cologne. I don’t want to hear about the new tower you’re building in whatever f–king town. That cologne smells of racism. That tower is built on the blood of disrespected slaves and freedom fighters. And that show is merely a showcase for the dishonor you have brought on anyone who would call themselves an American. Adam Serwer writes : Aside from being one of the most idiotic moments in American political history, this marks a level of personal humiliation no previous president has ever been asked to endure. Other presidents have been the target of crazy conspiracy theories, sure, but few have been as self-evidently absurd as birtherism. None has been so clearly rooted in anxieties about the president’s racial identity, because no previous American president has been black. B-Serious : He has been called everything but a child of God and, in two short years, has been portrayed as anything but what he truly is . . . A man, worthy of the respect and dignity of his own words and reputation. Instead, people have sought to attack the very foundation of his existence . . . his birth. And the sad part in all of this? It’s become par for the course. Not because President Obama has never answered his critics. Not because the President has never released information. Not because the President has allowed others to shape the debate. It’s because there never should have been a “debate” in the first place. It was never a real story to begin with. Oliver Willis : This is hilariously sad. It’s dumb that Obama had to go to extraordinary lengths to release his long-form birth certificate, but hilarious because it now shows that the leading presidential candidate of the Republican party has gotten to his position on what is an even now more thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory. David Remnick (The New Yorker) : Let’s be even plainer: to do what Trump has done (and he is only the latest and loudest and most spectacularly hirsute) is a conscious form of race-baiting, of fear-mongering. And if that makes Donald Trump proud, then what does that say for him? Perhaps now he will go away, satisfied that this passage has sufficiently restored his fame quotient and television ratings. The shame is that there are still many more around who, in the name of truth-telling, are prepared to pump the atmosphere full of poison. After watching Baratunde’s video and reading some of these comments, do you think these people really give a damn about Jake Tapper’s self-aggrandizing equivocation or Orly Taitz’ coked-up Soviet-style BS or Eric Cantor’s Orwellian flip-flop ? I’m sure the president understood that it wouldn’t satisfy the True Believers. But he smelled a swiftboating and decided to deal with it head-on. Corporate media have been put on notice now. They can make these wingnuts irrelevant or continue to flog the narrative. I suggest we begin to hold them accountable for flogging the narrative in a way that will cost them. Viewers, readers, advertisers, whatever it takes.