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Impeachment is a constitutionally enshrined process by which the House of Representatives investigates the President's actions and determines whether or not the President has abused their office.
If they find the President has abused that office, the case is sent to the Senate for trial and subsequent voting on whether or not to remove the President.
Only two Presidents—Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton—have ever been impeached.
Lynching, in its American context, is the extrajudicial torture and brutal murder of a black American for upsetting a racial status quo. The teenager Emmett Till was lynched in 1955 for the false accusation that he whistled at a white woman.
Lynchings, at their peak, were a form of entertainment in which people would gather with the joviality of an Independence Day barbecue to watch a fellow human being beaten and hanged. There were nearly 5,000 lynchings of Black men, women, and children between 1882 and 1968.
The differences between impeachment and lynching are countless, but the President either doesn't know them or—perhaps more probably—doesn't care.
In an all-too-typical early morning Twitter screed, the President said that the (again, constitutionally enshrined) impeachment inquiry against him was a lynching.
Lawmakers and private citizens alike balked at the President's comparison of constitutional oversight to slaughter in defense of white supremacy.
Lynching is a reprehensible stain on this nation's history, as is this President. We'll never erase the pain and tr… https://t.co/fobzim65S4— Kamala Harris (@Kamala Harris) 1571752961.0
You think this impeachment is a LYNCHING? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how many people who look l… https://t.co/gSnn0Yj7w1— Bobby L. Rush (@Bobby L. Rush) 1571745755.0
How careless white America has been with black pain. The same careless spirit that allows Trump to compare lynchin… https://t.co/D4v5ikoRol— Karen Attiah (@Karen Attiah) 1571756918.0
Emmett Till was lynched and so were many of our ancestors. In no way are you strange fruit hanging from a tree. BTW… https://t.co/Lf0cjvNCKe— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) 1571762689.0
Trump’s defenders are pulling out the dictionary to somehow defend his use of “lynching.” But when I’ve pulled a de… https://t.co/aHVK7qBEq8— Ibram X. Kendi (@Ibram X. Kendi) 1571762066.0
wild how republicans are more offended by the word "reparations" than they are the word "lynching"— Clint Smith (@Clint Smith) 1571764831.0
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham—whose state of South Carolina saw at least 164 lynchings in Jim Crow South, leapt to defend Trump's use of the word.
WATCH: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defends Pres. Trump's tweet describing the impeachment inquiry as a "lynching," c… https://t.co/bfkJHg34w1— CBS Evening News (@CBS Evening News) 1571765901.0
As did others of Trump's sycophants.
Co-hosting The View (!) today, Newt Gingrich defends Trump calling the impeachment inquiry a "lynching," telling hi… https://t.co/qBGtIIXeSI— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1571757565.0
But the vast majority know full well the connotations brought by the word "lynch."
📈‘Lynch’ is our top search today. Even in a metaphorical context, it still evokes a long and painful history of rac… https://t.co/4Arhr2IZL2— Merriam-Webster (@Merriam-Webster) 1571764783.0
A racist saying racist things isn't surprising, but it his horrifying—each time it happens.
The book, On the Courthouse Lawn, Anniversary Edition: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century is available here.
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Have you listened to the first season of George Takei's podcast, 'Oh Myyy Pod!'?
In season one we explored the racially charged videos that have taken the internet by storm.
We're hard at work on season two so be sure to subscribe here so you don't miss it when it goes live.
Here's one of our favorite episodes from season one. Enjoy!