Lynching: Bill Clinton vs. Donald Trump
Clinton and Trump are both white guys, when last I checked.
But many Democrats called the Clinton impeachment and trial a lynching, despite the fact that due process was strictly observed and the Starr report had listed evidence of actual crimes. Whereas they are now united in claiming that likening the current star-chamber-like proceedings against Trump to a lynching is a travesty, an outrage, a slur against the history of black oppression.
Some of those criticizing Trump’s use of the term are even old white guys who are on record as having used it themselves to refer to Clinton’s impeachment, such as Joe Biden:
“Impeachment is not ‘lynching,’ it is part of our Constitution,” the former vice president said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable.”
In an appearance on CNN in October 1998, however, Biden said the impending impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton could be viewed as a “partisan lynching.”
“Even if the President should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching or whether or not it was something that in fact met the standard, the very high bar, that was set by the founders as to what constituted an impeachable offense,” Biden said.
I suppose that’s because Clinton was the first black president, remember? And Trump is of course the modern incarnation of the KKK.
Lindsay Graham – another white guy – begs to differ with the condemnation of Trump:
“Yes, African-Americans were lynched, other people have people lynched throughout history,” Graham said. “What does lynching mean? That a mob grabs you, they don’t give you a chance to defend yourself, they don’t tell you what happened to you, they just destroy you.”
Well, they actually physically destroyed you, too, which seems quite different to me. But the word is often used metaphorically, and everyone – including the Democrats raising the current stupid hue and cry – is aware of that. But in what the left loves to refer to as the Age of Trump, their knowledge of metaphor goes out the window when the metaphor is used by Trump or the right.
I seem to recall that Clarence Thomas called the Anita Hill hearings a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves,” and he obviously didn’t mean he was being tortured and murdered in the literal sense. Thomas has been criticized plenty by Democrats, both before and since, but I don’t recall (and can’t find in a quick search right now) him being criticized for using that particular phrase – probably because he, as a black man, was given a pass, and also because back then people understood metaphors (as they did when the Democrats used it for Clinton).
[NOTE: What Thomas actually said – that the left does not allow black people to think for themselves and leave the leftist fold – has only become more true, and more viciously and frequently enforced, these days.]
at least with Clinton we got a dress with Bill’s semen stain on it. What do the dems have this time? nothing but A transcript proving Trump is determined to fight corruption and deliver his campaign promise of swamp draining to his voters.
Though he was unaware of it at the time Trump was undergoing a Loretta Lynching. (Har-har.) Now he knows. And better yet, can prove it.
I wonder if Mr. Trump said what he said and was aware of Biden’s previous statement using the word lynching? Knowing how the dems would react and how they would go overboard with their vitriol. But as soon as they were confronted with Biden’s statements, they went quiet on that.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Mentus is right: without Humpty-Dumptyism, tu quoque (Whataboutism?), and various versions of the genetic fallacy (ad hominem, among others), the Left got nothing. (Don’t forget straw men, says my wife.)
To a person with principles, the charge that one is behaving in an unprincipled and hypocritical way would bite. But this charge doesn’t. One may well conclude that we are not dealing with people overly troubled by scruple.
Why don’t we just start treating them as they deserve?
It is asinine for the racists (I’m speaking of blacks and Democrats/Leftists which, if you drew a Venn diagram largely overlap) to rewrite history. In the Jim Crow south at least 25% of the people lynched were white. The largest mass lynching in U.S. history was in 1891 New Orleans. The victims weren’t black but 11 Italian immigrants.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/01/us/new-orleans-mayor-apologizes-italian-americans-trnd/index.html
Although to be precise, as I don’t want to rewrite history, Italians weren’t considered white at the time. Lynching; it’s not just a black thing. P.S. The KKK didn’t like Jews much more than us swarthy Papists.
Lynching. It’s a word . . . get over it.
Our very own Cultural Revolution is creeping in on baby steps.
Biden says, “Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching”.
Really, Honest Joe, you POS?
OUR COUNTRY?
How about you and Robert Bork? You initiated and reveled in that high-tech lynching, Joe Biden.
Nope, just a tiny fraction of Americans with ropes. It happened in places where there was hardly any decent law enforcement, as in the Reconstruction South, or in the just-settled West. Crude justice, but not automatically wrong. Part of the reason the KKK arose!
Lee Smith: Today @nytimes notes my book out next week — The Plot Against The President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in US History — full of breaking news & scoops on unsung heroes, like investigator Kash Patel.
In addition to Catholics, Republicans, and horse thieves, Jews were also targets of lynchings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank
And I don’t know about Chinese workers in the West. It wouldn’t surprise me. It was a Democratic president who put Japanese, including American citizens of Japanese ancestry, in internment camps.
Democrats: The party of bitter hyperventilating hypocrites.
Joe Biden: While we’re on the subject of the “dark, shameful history” of lynching, I would like to discuss the dark, shameful present of black-on-white violent crime.
I obtained the statistics below from the DOJ for 2005. The DOJ has changed their formats and made it more difficult to extract these numbers. However, I don’t imagine the overall ratios have changed much.
White-on-Black-completed-violence-cases: 9,025
Black-on-White–completed-violence-cases: 131,006
White-on-Black-sexual-assault-cases: 10
Black-on-White–sexual-assault-cases: 37,460
Even though whites outnumbered blacks by a factor of 5.67 in 2005, blacks committed violence against whites by vastly larger numbers.
If a Martian looked at these numbers and accepted their accuracy, he would have to conclude American blacks are currently conducting violent race war against American whites.
I have a hard time understanding these numbers otherwise myself.
Maybe being gunned down or raped in a small venue situation lacks the iconic drama of a “lynching.” But the victim is just as dead or injured or scarred for life.
It seems to me this should matter.
According to wiki:
According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites. More than 73 percent of lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states.[9] According to the Equal Justice Initiative, 4,084 African-Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950 in the South.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States
It’s dark and shameful but lynchings have been over for 50+ years. Meanwhile blacks are murdering whites by margins well over 3,446 every year.
We can’t change the violence of the past, but we might change violence in the present. But we can’t even discuss the problem of black-on-white violence, as well as black-on-anyone violence including other blacks, the numbers of which are way off the charts.
Kindly try to remember the Rules of the Game (which are actually quite simple):
1. Democrats are allowed to lynch, defenestrate, hog-tie (and a whole lot more) Republicans.
2. When Republicans try to defend themselves against Democrats who are engaging in lynching, defenestrating, hog-tying (and a whole lot more) Republicans, then it is the Republicans who are guilty.
Yes, quite simple and easy to remember (or should be if one makes any modicum of effort).
Palestinian rules!
huxley,
The pattern you note goes back 60 years, at least. If you limit crimes against whites to blacks males under 24 you will find that subset is a small percentage of (less than 2%) of our total population. Subtract homicides committed by young blacks in the USA and you will find the homicide rate per capita here is lower than Canada and anywhere in Europe. A truth that upsets conventional wisdom. No one wants to utter that simple truth, but the left wants me to be defenseless.
The vast majority of actual lynchings in post-Civil War America occurred by Democrats. The KKK was a Democratic Party para-military group, empowered by Dem politicians protecting them. Every “Jim Crow” law that was passed was passed by Democratic politicians. Today’s masked Antifa folk would have been happy 30s KKK hood wearers.
Yes, it’s a dark stain on “America” – but especially a dark stain on the Democratic Party. Republicans have always been against lynchings, both real and metaphoric.
I wish Trump or other Reps would start calling the Dems the KKK party. Because Reps want to treat people as individuals, and Dems want to treat people as members of groups, with a tribal identity that confers different status based on the tribe.
Including the wider-elite tribe of college educated folk, who excuse lynchings done by Democrats, but get apoplectic about Reps calling what they’re doing a metaphoric “lynching”.
More Civility Bullshit (guess I should look at what Ann is saying lately, too).
“What Thomas actually said – that the left does not allow black people to think for themselves and leave the leftist fold – has only become more true, and more viciously and frequently enforced, these days”
Because desperation. Kanye. Candace. The left may not allow it, but the individuals are still free to think and choose it. Much more of that is going on right under the surface, I have seen it myself.