Echoing the classic Clarence Thomas line about being the victim of a high-tech lynching, President Donald Trump tweeted that the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is a lynching. Clearly the president is in need of a serious history lesson.
Actually, a Lynching is Quite Different
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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If I’m not misinformed, Ted, lynchings were generally carried out as public spectacles, and it seems likely that in most cases, «Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present» would have been obtained. Perhaps in the case of Mr Trump, the post-impeachment trail venue should be removed from the Senate to a place outdoors with a big tree with sturdy-looking branches and room for a bonfire and a cross ?…
Henri
The most politically and economically powerful of the US always cry victim.
The powerful are always fearful that those they exploit might want some share of the wealth that the wealthy could not have accrued without exploiting most ruthlessly the most precarious of people.
I am reminded of Ted Bundy.
Near the end, when he’d played all the cards he had to delay his execution, he brought up that he could help investigators find the graves of some of his victims. Rightly or wrongly, the investigators decided that Mr. Bundy was just trying to drag things out and possibly set up another round of legal maneuvers to delay his execution, so they declined, and Bundy was executed.
Those people were smart enough to turn down his offer because they realized that Ted Bundy was probably playing them.
Donald Trump is doing the exact same thing Bundy did. He invokes “lynching.” Why? It muddies the waters. It adds one more thing to the wild Wizard of Oz cyclone of swirling debris that his presidency has become, and the media takes it as manna from heaven because it gives them some real juicy stuff to bloviate about.
Meanwhile, Trump’s already moved on to his next scandal. As a result, the previous scandal is no longer relevant (somehow), and the media is off on another cycle of manufactured outrage.
Well played, Donald.
(I notice with some surprise–because it never dawned on me until today–that Donald Trump probably would have been wildly successful with a publishing empire back in the glory days of two editions a day. He’d have had people chasing the paperboys down in the streets and ripping the papers out of their hands.)
Keep in mind that Mr Trump was a successful host for a TV reality show and knows very well that yesterday’s news is dead – or at least can be killed – as long as one keeps them coming. Here a poet and astronomer’s take on things :
Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Reduced the Year to better reckoning?–Nay
‘Twas only striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.
Henri