Democrats’ ambitions in taking on the GOP in 2020 do not end with the White House. Down in South Carolina, former state Democratic Party chair Jaime Harrison is running a bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Trump opponent turned staunch supporter Lindsey Graham, who’s up for re-election next year. Harrison’s campaign revealed this Wednesday that he had raised some $150,000 and counting just in the day or so since Graham supported President Donald Trump’s assertion that the currently ongoing House Democratic impeachment inquiry into him constituted a “lynching.”
Harrison’s campaign manager Zack Carroll said:
‘Our campaign is powered by everyday people who know that Lindsey Graham doesn’t represent them and can’t be trusted. In the hours after Graham compared investigating political corruption to a ‘lynching,’ contributions to support Jaime started pouring in. South Carolinians believe in Jaime’s promise to bring hope and character back to our politics — and they’re rejecting Lindsey Graham.’
As should go entirely without saying, violent public executions of black Americans and the duly proceeding judicial investigations sparked by Trump’s demonstrably documented conduct are entirely incomparable. That didn’t stop Graham from jumping on the outrageous bandwagon of deriding the investigation as a “lynching” anyway.
Trump had complained on Twitter:
‘All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!’
Graham apparently heard the call from Dear Leader and accepted that line of reasoning, telling reporters:
‘This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American. I’ve never seen a situation in my lifetime as a lawyer where somebody is accused of a major misconduct who cannot confront the accuser, call witnesses on their behalf and have the discussion in the light of day so the public can judge.’
This is most definitely not a lynching in every sense! Graham has gone so far off the rails that he’s simultaneously elevating Trump to some kind of martyr status and steamrolling over the history of violence against black Americans, all in the name of protecting Trump’s ego. Talk about a personality cult!
Harrison — who himself is black and was the first black chairperson of the South Carolina Democratic Party — was among many to directly rebuff this spectacle.
Harrison insisted:
‘For three generations in South Carolina, we have understood the evil history of lynching in our state. We have all — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — agreed it will not define who we are as South Carolinians anymore. We put the shadow of lynching behind us, but now Lindsey Graham is casting that shadow across South Carolina and our nation to defend Donald Trump.’
The whole debacle got underway on the same day that acting Ukraine Ambassador Bill Taylor testified to Congress, defying an essentially blanket lockdown on any administration cooperation with the House impeachment inquiry. Taylor’s testimony proved condemning — he described the Trump administration attempting to make everything Ukraine wanted dependent on them getting an investigation of the Bidens underway. Trump and his closest associates have insisted that they didn’t do anything wrong, but the evidence keeps piling up anyway.
