Donald Trump does not share many identifiable traits\nwith former president George W. Bush, or with Bush\u2019s late father, George H.W.\nBush. But there is one confounding trait\nthat all three men have regularly exhibited during their time in the White\nHouse\u2026 a trait that leaves their friends and supporters thoroughly perplexed. I refer to their apparent inability to\nrespond to Democratic slights or insults with \u201cbiting\u201d responses. Whenever Democrats unwittingly give\nRepublicans an open opportunity for a knockout retort, Republicans invariably\ntreat the opportunity as if it were a sexually transmitted disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, in July 1990, after haggling for months\nwith congressional Democrats over spending cuts vs. tax increases, the matter\nwas ultimately resolved at an \u201ceconomic summit\u201d held at Andrews Air Force\nBase. At that summit, Democrats agreed\nto specific spending cuts, while Bush agreed to tax increases, abandoning his\nfamous \u201cread my lips; no new taxes\u201d pledge and setting the stage for his defeat\nin 1992. Bush shook hands on the deal\nwith House and Senate Democrats and returned to the White House to await the agreed-upon\nlegislations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the spending bills arrived on his desk, he signed\nthem into law. He then leaned back in\nhis chair to await the promised spending cuts. \nHe waited\u2026 and waited\u2026 and waited. \nBut, as might be expected, no spending reductions ever arrived. It was a perfect example of the sincerity of a\nDemocratic handshake. It was also an\nobject lesson that he and George W. had available to them in subsequent\nyears. But either they failed to\nremember the duplicity of 1990, or they were too nice or too dumb to recognize\nits value as a political weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, in October 2019, nearly thirty years later,\nRepublicans have been given a stunning invitation to let every American\ncitizen, especially those in the African American community, understand the\ntrue history of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an early morning tweet on Tuesday, October 22,\nTrump expressed his anger and frustration with the totally unfair and\nillegitimate process that House Democrats are using in their attempt to justify\nhis impeachment. He tweeted, \u201cSo someday, if a Democrat becomes\nPresident and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can\nimpeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are\nwitnessing here \u2014 a lynching. But we\nwill WIN!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To put Trump\u2019s use of the term \u201clynching\u201d into some context, it is first necessary to recognize that, according to archival statistics at Tuskegee Institute and at the NAACP, between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the United States.\u00a0 Of these, 3,446 were blacks, and 1,297 were whites\u2026 a great many of them white Republicans.\u00a0 So, the question arises, how many white Republicans have Democrats murdered, for no better reason than that they disagreed with them politically?\u00a0 And how many Democrats have Republicans murdered in response?\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, who were these mass murderers?\u00a0 In their condemnation, while hoping to put a respectable face on the Democrat Party and their destructive paternalism of black people, NBC noted that, \u201cThe president’s use of \u2018lynching,\u2019 which elicits a time when black Americans were murdered by extrajudicial white mobs, was the subject of immediate blowback.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0When we consider that white Democrats have gone to great lengths for the past 154 years to hide the fact that they were the principal opponents of the 13th<\/sup>, 14th<\/sup>, and 15th<\/sup> Amendments\u2026. outlawing slavery and giving the former slaves citizenship and voting rights\u2026 as well as the authors of the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws, to say that their paramilitary auxiliary, the KKK, was nothing more than an \u201cextrajudicial white mob\u201d takes political correctness to a never-before-seen level of silliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Needless\nto say, Trump\u2019s use of the term \u201clynching\u201d brought immediate condemnation. Representative Barbara Jackson Lee (D-TX) said, \u201cFor him to say something like that was disgusting,\nreflects his insensitivity toward the historical tragedies of this country\u2026\u201d To add a\nbit of perspective to her criticism, one would have to ask Ms. Lee, \u201cWhose\nsensitivity?\u201d What sensitivity have\nDemocrats, black and white, shown toward the mindless brutalizing of the black\nrace by a Democratic paramilitary auxiliary, the KKK? The truth is, most black people regularly\nvote for candidates of the same party that committed unspeakable acts of cruelty\nagainst their forebears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, in May of 1918, there were a series of\nlynchings in Georgia. When Mary Turner,\nwho was nine-months pregnant at the time, complained that she was going to see\nto it that the white men who lynched her husband would be prosecuted, a mob\ndragged her from her home, tortured her, and hanged her. Then, while she was still alive, hanging from\na rope, they cut open her womb. The child\nspilled out onto the ground and they crushed the baby\u2019s skull under the heel of\na boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One wonders how much success Mary\nTurner might have had in her quest for Justice. \nIn many (most?) instances of Klan violence it was no secret who was\nhidden beneath the white sheets and under the white peaked hats. Unfortunately, other than their costumes, the\nKlansmen all shared another very important thing in common: they were all\nDemocrats. And since all the members of\nthe local constabulary were Democrats, as were the prosecutors, judges, and\njuries, successful prosecutions of Klan violence were a rarity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) responded to Trump\u2019s tweet, saying,\n\u201cLynching is a reprehensible stain on this nation\u2019s history, as is this\nPresident. We\u2019ll never erase the pain\nand trauma of lynching, and to invoke that torture to whitewash your own\ncorruption is disgraceful.\u201d When Democrats decided\nduring the mid-1950s that, since slavery was no longer a viable alternative in\nthe U.S., they would have to purchase the loyalty of blacks with a\nmulti-trillion dollar social welfare spending spree, is it not reasonable for\nus to ask Sen. Harris whether or not the welfare state is just the Democrats\u2019\nway of \u201cwhitewashing\u201d their own corruption? \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) said, \u201cYou think this\nimpeachment is a LYNCHING? What the hell is wrong\nwith you? Do you know how many people\nwho look like me have been lynched, since the inception of this country, by\npeople who look like you? Delete this tweet.\u201d Rep. Rush thoughtlessly lumps all\nwhites into a single group when he addresses Trump as \u201cpeople\nwho look like you.\u201d We should remind Representative Rush that the\nhundreds of thousands who fought and died in a great war to end slavery did not\nall look alike. Some who looked like\nDonald Trump (my great-grandfather, Lt. Col. Johann Dietrich Hollrah of the\nUnion Army, among them) were devout abolitionists; other white combatants felt\njust as strongly about maintaining the institution of slavery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Australian website news.com came as close\nas anyone to defining, perhaps unwittingly, what the fury is all about. They wrote, \u201cLynchings, or\nhangings, were historically mostly used by whites against black men in the\nSouth beginning in the late 19th century amid rising racial tensions in the US. By comparing the impeachment process to a\nlynching, Mr. Trump is also likening Democrats to a lynch mob.\u201d So, what\u2019s their point? When\none considers all of the above, concluding that the Democrat Party is, in fact,\nthe party of Slavery, Secession, and Segregation, we leave it to everyone\u2019s\nconscience to decide which party most resembles a \u201clynch\nmob.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n How many black\nDemocrats, who regularly cast 90-95% of their votes for members of the party\nthat murdered their great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, are now among Donald\nTrump\u2019s most vocal critics? How many of\nthem are even aware of their party\u2019s racist history? And how many black children learn the history\nof the slavery era in their Black History classes? Given the predictable\ndestruction of the black family unit that can be traced directly to the\nDemocrats\u2019 management of the welfare state, is it not treasonable to ask whether\nor not the welfare state has not been used by the Democrat Party as \u201can act of\nterror used to uphold white supremacy,\u201d as Senator Cory Booker has suggested?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally, when one considers the evils of\nlynching, it is simply not possible to have such a discussion without recalling\nthe ordeal of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Clarence\nThomas, at the hands of Senate Democrats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clarence Thomas was nominated as an\nAssociate Justice by President George H.W. Bush. But, if Thomas had known in advance the\nphysical and emotional agony he would experience at the hands of Senate Democrats,\nmembers of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he would not have hesitated;\nhe would have declined the president\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe final day of his Senate confirmation hearing, Friday, October 11, 1991,\nJustice Thomas delivered what was the most devastating rebuke that a committee\nof the United States Senate has ever endured. He closed his\nremarks by saying, \u201cThis is a circus. It\nis a national disgrace. And from my\nstandpoint as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech\nlynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do\nfor themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you\nkowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you, you will be lynched,\ndestroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from\na tree.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clarence\nThomas must sit before his TV each night with a tear in his eye, saying a\nsilent prayer for President Donald Trump. \nWhat they did to Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh, and to Judge Robert\nBork, is simply standard Democrat procedure. \nIt\u2019s just the way they play the game. \nNo one knows that better than these three jurists. Trump is right. What they experienced, and what Trump is\nexperiencing now, can only be described by two words: it is a \u201cpublic lynching.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul R. Hollrah is\na retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S.\nElectoral College. He currently lives\nand writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma\u2019s Green Country.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump does not share many identifiable traits with former president George W. Bush, or with Bush\u2019s late father, George H.W. Bush. But there is one confounding trait that all three men have regularly exhibited during their time in the … Continue reading