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Donald Trump is once again playing the victim with the vilest of comparisons. In response to the House’s impeachment inquiry for him, the current occupant of the White House compared Democrats upholding the Constitution to his own “lynching.”
His Twitter fingers were busy beginning early Tuesday morning when he tweeted the following ignorant and blasphemous assertion that “All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching.”
Twitter was quick to slam the lies, deception and unique cultural appropriation of the Black experience Trump was spewing by comparing his possible impeachment to murders committed by mobs of racist white people.
Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush, who is a sitting member of the Congressional Black Caucus, urged Trump to take down his ignorant post.
Other folks brought up statements Trump made in 1989 about the Exonerated Five, then called the Central Park 5.
When the five Black and Latino teens were accused of raping a White woman jogger in Central Park, Trump paid for a full-page ad calling for the death penalty less than two weeks after they were falsely accused. The ad was placed in four New York City newspapers with the headline, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!”
The ads, which cost about $85,000, were published on May 1, 1989, in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post and New York Newsday. A popular business mogul then, Trump claimed there was no more “law and order” in New York City.
“At what point did we cross the line from the fine and noble pursuit of genuine civil liberties to the reckless and dangerously permissive atmosphere which allows criminals of every age to beat and rape a helpless woman and then laugh at her family’s anguish,” he said at the time.
The Central Park Five — Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise — became known as the Exonerated Five when in 2002 convicted murderer Matias Reyes confessed to raping Trisha Meili that day in 1989, which was confirmed by DNA evidence. The Exonerated Five were awarded $41 million in 2014 from the city.
For Trump to compare the impeachment inquiry against him to a lynching is peak hypocrisy, considering he was already calling for death penalties before Black teens could even make it to court. The friendly folks on Twitter reminded the president of this, with political commentator Tiffany Cross posting a picture of Trump’s “Death Penalty” ad and calling out the president for his deflection tactics that she saw right through.
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley responded to Trump’s tweet in part by asking God for patience with his racism.
“Haven’t even had coffee yet & the occupant of the WH, the bigoted man who called for the execution of the exonerated 5, is tossing the word ‘lynching’ around. Lord give me the strength to not take the bait but hold this man accountable for every single thing he says and does.”
According to the NAACP, more than 4,700 lynchings occurred in the U.S. from 1882 to 1968. Of those who were lynched, more than 3,400 were Black, though not all lynchings that occurred were documented. Many of the white people who were lynched were killed for helping Black people or for opposing lynchings all together.
Check out more reactions to Trump’s ridiculous statements below.
