Donald Trump Is Not Being Lynched!

My letter in today’s Trib Star.


‘Lynching’ not the rule of law

“I know words. I have the best words.” ― Donald Trump, March 2016

“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching.” — Donald Trump, October 2019

For those dwindling number of Republicans who once thought that Donald Trump “know[s] words” and has “the best words,” his tweet calling the impeachment process enshrined in the Constitution a “lynching” is an act of historical ignorance. No, make that an act of obscene historical ignorance.

Counts vary and are incomplete, but a close study by the NAACP for the years 1882-1968 document that 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Most of these lynchings were of African Americans. All lynchings are murders. The lynchings in our past saw men, women and children murdered by mobs of citizens in spectacles held in public settings and by cowardly groups at night in secret. The killers acted as judge, jury and executioners.

Donald Trump is not being lynched.

The inquiry into Donald Trump’s use of the presidency in support of his personal political ambitions now taking place in the United States House of Representatives is a vital part of the checks and balances written into our Constitution. Impeachment is part of a check on the power of the president. This is how law and order works. Law and order is what the Republican Party has stood for in the past.

This all changed with Donald Trump. He only knows words that fit his personal agenda. These words are what he thinks are “the best words.” Words such as “lynching.”

— Gary W. Daily, Terre Haute

Terre Haute Tribune Star