The Grand Illusion
Trump has now called the ongoing impeachment process “a lynching.” Despite his self-pity and rhetorical protests, the impeachment process that the House of Representatives has begun is about as far from a lynching as possible.
A lynching takes place when a mob, almost always of white males, decides to hang someone, seldom ever anyone except an African-American male, without any process of law whatsoever.
Impeachment is a process set forth in the Constitution, requiring that the House develop articles of impeachment, which the House presents to the Senate. The Senate must hear that presentation and then vote by a two-thirds majority to vote to convict and remove the president from office. Given that the majority of the Senate is Republican, President Trump is in no danger of being removed from office unless a significant number of senators of his own party agree with the findings of the articles of impeachment. Even if they do, it’s certainly not a lynch mob, but a Constitutional process. Also, if convicted, Trump wouldn’t end up dead, unlike the more than four thousand minority victims lynched in the United States in the U.S. between 1882 and 1968. At worst, he might end up out of office and subject to criminal prosecution.
At the same time, I don’t notice anyone calling the impeachment process Republicans used on President Clinton a lynch mob, and the charges against him were essentially those of private moral turpitude, while the charges against Trump appear to be much more in the category of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” that affect the entire nation, something that Clinton’s supposed crimes had absolutely no impact upon, except to excite moral outrage. And interesting enough, Trump has done far more in the way of moral turpitude than Clinton ever even thought of. But the Republicans don’t want to consider that, either.
But maybe the American people should, and not fall for Trump’s “poor victim” act, especially since Trump seems to think it’s fine for him to be able to attack others, usually with great vituperation, but not for anyone to judge him. “L’ete, c’est Trump!”?
In fact, Joe Biden described the Republican impeachment of President Clinton as a “partisan lynching” in 1998.
(https://www.npr.org/2019/10/23/772671301/after-hitting-trump-biden-apologizes-for-referring-to-partisan-lynching-in-1998)
Not that he should have used the term either – you’re absolutely right that an impeachment and a lynching are not even close to the same thing – but it clearly gets tossed around far more cavalierly it should.
A number of Dems did back then (not of course, that such hyperbole is helpful regardless of who uses it; and impeachment doesn’t _require_ any particular due process except a simple majority in the House, but has always had some in the past):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/22/least-house-democrats-called-bill-clintons-impeachment-lynching/
The more emotive the word the less it should be used in public (in private one is likely to know if one is misunderstood – in public those who misunderstand can do a lot of damage).
Is it possible to convey meaning without emotion? In fact do we really want such communication? Such communication may have the same result as if we were all equal – total boredom! However, freedom of speech raises its uncontrollable head. None the less; if one likes chaos …