Sen. Lindsey Graham ran to Trump’s defense after the president called his impeachment a lynching.
Trump tweeted:
So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) showed that there is nothing that Trump can do that would cause Republicans to break with him:
Graham asked whether he can understand African Americans being offended by the term:
"No, I think lynching is being seen as somebody taking the law in their own hands and out to get somebody for no good reason." https://t.co/Ly3Hujew6F
— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) October 22, 2019
House Democrats aren’t “taking the law into their own hands.” Under the Constitution, they are the law on impeachment. Trump is under investigation by the House. He doesn’t get “rights,” just as criminal suspects don’t have Miranda rights until after they are charged with a crime.
The racism is as obvious as Trump’s self-pity. After slavery, lynching is one of the big crimes and acts of terrorism perpetrated against African-Americans in US history. Trump is not being lynched. Democrats are not a mob of vigilantes. Trump is a criminal who is being investigated for his crimes.
Trump’s lynching tweet should be disavowed by every Republican. Instead, we have people like Lindsey Graham normalizing Trump’s racism and proving that it is a tentpole of the Republican Party.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association