It was July of 2009. The economy was on the edge of collapse, with
467,000 jobs lost the previous month. The unemployment rate was 9.5 percent. But for thousands of Americans, the real crisis was a dark secret that the government was supposedly hiding: President Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

“Will you keep the Republic, or will you allow it to be stolen from us because of apathy?” asked one “birther”