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!

Neither crazed fiends not the dregs of white society, the bulk of the lynchers tended to be ordinary and respectable people, animated by a self-righteousness that justified their atrocities in the name of maintaining the social and racial order and the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race. The mobs who meted out "summary justice” were pronounced by one Georgian as "composed of our best citizens, who are foremost in all works of public and private good”…. Drawn from all classes in southern white society, from the "red-necks” to the best people,” lynchers came together in an impressive show of racial and community solidarity ….

But white solidarity almost always prevailed. Townspeople closed ranks to protect their own kind, thereby becoming partners in the crimes committed. Eyewitnesses refused to testify, and grand juries refused to bring indictments against easily identifiable mob participants; even if they had, juries would have refused to convict, whatever the evidence.

Historian Ibram X. Kendi believes Donald Trump is the second most racist president in American history , ranking only behind Andrew Jackson. Based on Trump’s ongoing behavior, Kendi may need to re-evaluate that assessment.On Tuesday, America’s racist in chief managed to combine his lawlessness and white supremacy in a single tweet:In the worst of ways, Donald Trump has shown himself once again to be a deft multitasker of ignorance, hate and authoritarianism.Lawlessness: Donald Trump does not believe in the rule of law or the U.S. Constitution. He has said as much, describing the Constitution as “phony.” Impeachment is also one of the most important elements of the Constitution because it is the ultimate protection against a tyrant. Trump and his regime, of course, do not believe that any substantive restrictions on the president’s behavior exist — as long as the president is Donald Trump or another Republican.White supremacy: At least 4,000 black Americans were killed by white mobs and individuals in the extrajudicial killings known as lynchings across the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. This political terrorism was not confined to the South. Black people were also lynched in states such as Indiana. The goal of white-on-black racial terrorism was to intimidate and control black people who desired, struggled for and demanded their full human rights as citizens of the United States. Racial pogroms and lynchings — especially what are known as “spectacular lynchings,” attended by hundreds or even thousands of white people — were a for of terrorism used by whites to intimidate and control black Americans.Trump’s comments on Tuesday are also a reminder that lawlessness and white supremacy are not discrete and separate from one another. They have a complex and contradictory relationship.White supremacy is maintained through the law: Racists ignore the law when they need to, and invoke the law when it serves their purposes.White-on-black lynchings were not vile acts perpetrated by outliers in white society, people who were exceptionally barbarous compared to the “ordinary” white person. Lynchings were part of a regime of racial terrorism with the goal of maintaining white control over black people in all areas of American life. This culture of racial terrorism that Trump references so casually was central to American society. That ethos of racism as violence against black people specifically, and against nonwhite people (including Latinos and Muslims) more generally, continues through to the Age of Trump. This violence has “evolved” to fit the sensibilities of the post-civil rights era.In his book "Trouble in Mind," historian Leon Litwack writes about America’s culture of lynching:Trump defenders, as they always do, have summoned ridiculous defenses. They note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said, some decades ago, that he was a victim of a “high-tech lynching.” They claim people are too "sensitive" because of "political correctness.” They claim that lynchings don’t necessarily have anything to do with race. of course, they insist that Trump is not a racist; he is misunderstood or being persecuted by Democrats and the "liberal media.”Like almost all defenses of Trump’s behavior, such claims are easily dismissed by honest and ethical human beings.The racism of Trump’s comments about lynching is easily exposed through several basic questions.