OPINION:
So President Donald Trump called the leftist-fueled attempt to impeach him and drive him from office a lynching. And now the political world’s on fire, seeing images of trees and dangling ropes and hanging blacks and so forth and so on, and drawing conclusions of this president’s inherent racism and hatred toward blacks.
Oh, please. It’s called figurative language, folks.
If lynching is offensive to Democrats, then witch hunt — another term used by Trump to describe the left’s incessant call for impeachment — is offensive to pagans.
This is simply the Democrats’ next way to create a wave of outrage they can ride all through the media, one click closer to taking down this White House.
Trump tweeted this: “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!”
Democrats decried. As they always do whenever this president speaks.
Republicans — the weaker ones, the political career ones, the ones who always want to run from bad press, rather than stand and fight — condemned.
“’[Trump] never should have made that comparison,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who’s facing reelection, tweeted. ” ’Lynching’ brings back images of a terrible time in our nation’s history, and the president never should have made that comparison.”
Why not?
It’s done all the time.
“At least 5 House Democrats compared Bill Clinton’s impeachment to a ’lynching’ in 1998,” The Washington Post wrote.
“Flashback: Jerry Nadler in 1998 Accused Republicans of Running a ’Lynch Mob’ Against Bill Clinton,” Breitbart wrote.
“’Sham,’ ’careless,’ ’lynch mob’: Texas Republicans rip Dems’ impeachment push as they stand by Trump,” Dallas News wrote in September, citing Sen. Ted Cruz’s characterization of the “Democrats’ push to a ’lynch mob.’”
Fight the word censors.
Bite the word censors.
How come the Democrats can stand for the f-bomb being thrown in supposed polite society, as when incoming congressional members like Rashida Tlaib vow to “impeach the motherf—er” Trump — but can’t stand for a literary use of a well-used descriptor like lynching?
How come Democrats, even campaigning-for-president Democrats like Beto O’Rourke, can use words like Hitler and Nazi to describe this president — but can’t stand for a literary use of a well-used descriptor like lynching?
It’s all political show. It’s all political bunk. And the American people shouldn’t buy into the hypocrisy because, in the end, it all comes down to censorship.
If Trump wants to call the impeachment swirl that’s been surrounding him since Day One — since before he even physically took office, at his Inauguration — and use descriptive words like witch hunt, or lynching, or fraud, well then, so be it.
He means one and the same — that the left has treated him over-the-top unfairly. What’s more, Democrats know that.
They’re just hoping to distract you from knowing they know that, and create the kind of furor that drums up animosity against this president. Elections are coming, and all the Democrats have to offer is a Hate Trump platform.
But think: Those on the left aren’t upset about a word. Those on the left are furious Trump is president. So furious, in fact, that they’re willing to walk a path of silly censorship just to inflict political dings.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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