To many, myself included, President Trump’s use of the word “lynching” to describe his feelings around current impeachment proceedings against him is not only quite a stretch but outrageous. By now I don’t think anyone is surprised by the president’s choice of words. He often wields them with wild abandon. I do feel, however, there’s a method to this madness.

There is no doubt that the use of this word evokes a particularly hideous time in American history — highlighting in the most graphic way man’s inhumanity to man.

And there can be no question about its chilling, emotional impact. When I first heard it, I wondered whether Trump was taking a page out of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill confirmation hearing playbook from 1991.

How could anyone forget the Supreme Court confirmation hearings in which then-nominee Thomas, denying the accusations of sexual harassment by attorney Anita Hill, lobbed the verbal grenade that shocked and shamed the all-white, all-male judiciary panel. Thomas called the investigation “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.” Thomas was confirmed, 52-48 and many saw his response as his Hail Mary pass widely credited with helping turn the tide for Thomas. But I doubt very seriously that framing the impeachment proceedings as a lynching will have the same effect for the president. I don’t think spending a lot of time parsing it gets us anywhere. Let’s face it, Trump is a master of distraction. Don’t buy into it.

While most Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, say they would have chosen different words than the president used, Trump’s apologist-in-chief Sen. Lindsay Graham, (R-S.C.) agreed with the president’s assessment that impeachment proceedings were tantamount to a lynching. Hailing from South Carolina, one of many southern states where lynching was almost a cottage industry, I am not surprised. Sen. Graham’s view of lynching and the use of the word is very different than that of his African American South Carolinian colleague in the House, Rep. James Clyburn.

“I’m a product of the South. I know the history of that word,” Clyburn said during an appearance on CNN. “That is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using.”

On “The View,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich felt the need to point out that blacks were not the only ones who were lynched — Italians were too. Wow. That’s what you call a real whitewash!

Lynch mobs served as judge, jury and executioner in the not-so-distant period of American history. According to the NAACP, there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the U.S. between 1882 and 1968. Of these, 3,446 were black — 72.7%. Often victims of vigilantes, they were tortured and executed for crimes real, trumped up and imagined.

So what could be the real meaning and message behind the president’s choice of the word, and most importantly, who might he be sending his message to? Could it be the “very fine people” — as he referred to the white nationalists in Charlottesville two years ago?

Or maybe he’s speaking to white supremacists — many of whom see him as the Great White Hope. If they could get away with it, many would still be hanging black folks today and maybe even some of those white people who march in solidarity with them. Bottom line though is that they would most definitely be incensed by the image the president seems to project about being lynched.

I’ve got a better approach — how about we do the work most of America wants by continuing the impeachment hearings without letting inflammatory, inciteful, divisive and hateful words distract us.

Joyce Ferriabough Bolling is a media and political strategist and communications specialist.