# Mississippi Senator wants "public hanging" ?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2018, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398 "2018-11-12T08:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/61 "2018-11-25T10:33:06Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Smith is a terrible candidate. She fumbled the lone debate. > [Chris Hayes on You Tube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5auAIakKM0) > > [Cindy Hyde-Smith touts work with imaginary GOP senator, mixes up election date in disastrous debate](https://thinkprogress.org/cindy-hyde-smith-mississippi-republican-senate-debate-mike-espy-runoff-november-27-gop-senator-3bd8502f183e/) > Apparently, she couldn’t even read her cheat sheet accurately. This is an example of your side attempting to have it both ways. Your side tried it with G.W. Bush. Is she a wily genius who is floating out dog whistles to the other side in a crafty attempt to rile up the racists, or is she simply a buffoon who does not know when election day is scheduled? Does Obama believe that there are 57 states? At some point this “gotcha” politics has to stop. Clearly, she is not the most polished candidate, but the meaning of an off-handed remark about how she would attend a public hanging with her supporter (who she was attempting to say was a real solid guy) was saying that he was such a great guy that she would go to something that she otherwise would not attend: a public hanging, a thing which does not exist anymore. It was hyperbole to say that she would do anything with this guy. How anyone gets that she “wants” public hangings as stated in this thread title is absurd beyond belief. Of course, I do not expect it to stop as it scores (or has a chance of scoring) political points. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/62 "2018-11-25T12:12:29Z")
I don’t think Espy can win since he’s not running against a pedophile . ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/63 "2018-11-25T12:47:37Z")
Wait, **UltraVires** , you think it takes a genius to make up a bad dog whistle? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/64 "2018-11-25T13:27:58Z")
Yeah, an actual dog whistle takes some intelligence to craft (though even then, it could be the intelligence of a speechwriter, not of the candidate herself). Just coming on TV and saying “Hey, y’all, you should vote for me because I’m a racist like all y’all” doesn’t. And telling the wrong date to your supporters goes beyond a demonstration of idiocy: It actively, directly sabotages your own campaign, even if nobody cares about the optics. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/65 "2018-11-25T13:52:14Z")
> **[Hyde-Smith Sent Daughter to School Started to Evade Integration | Law &...](https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/gop-senator-sent-daughter-to-private-school-started-to-dodge-racial-integration/)** > > Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) sent her daughter to a private school originally founded as to way for white students to evade racial integration. Smith sent her daughter to a “segregation academy” (a private school founded to avoid integration). These are incredibly common in Southern states, which doesn’t excuse them in any way at all. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/66 "2018-11-25T14:50:30Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > This is an example of your side attempting to have it both ways. Your side tried it with G.W. Bush. > > Is she a wily genius who is floating out dog whistles to the other side in a crafty attempt to rile up the racists, or is she simply a buffoon who does not know when election day is scheduled? Does Obama believe that there are 57 states? > > At some point this “gotcha” politics has to stop. Clearly, she is not the most polished candidate, but the meaning of an off-handed remark about how she would attend a public hanging Offhand it might’ve been, but it was truly bizarre. Really not the sort of thing a normal person would say, even offhandedly. I trip over my (spoken) words all the time, so I’m sympathetic to the notion that people shouldn’t make a big deal out of something that could be a simple verbal goof. (Like the ‘57 states.’) But how do you innocently try to compliment someone, and have words spill out of your mouth about public hangings? Seriously, _dafuq?!_ And of course, the things she said at the debate were only ‘offhand’ in the sense of having been made carelessly _after what one has to assume was great preparation_. This was presumably her ‘A’ game, and if it looked like anyone else’s D-minus game, there should be a lesson there. And: > [@](#): > > Is she a wily genius who is floating out dog whistles to the other side in a crafty attempt to rile up the racists, or is she simply a buffoon who does not know when election day is scheduled? Or she could be a racist AND a buffoon. And she’s just being herself, rather than deliberately concocting dog whistles. The simplest explanation is usually the best. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/67 "2018-11-25T14:55:40Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > T > Is she a wily genius … Seriously dude. No one has claimed she is wily in the least. She is a casual racist who does not even realize how much of a racist is just a like a fish doesn’t know what wet is. She has soaked in it all her life. Her complete unawareness of it led to her being her normal racist self in public and then digging herself deeper in after the fact. All she had to do to win this run off by double digits was mouth a few platitudes and say “Trump!”. In that state a white Republican against a Black Democrat would like win even if a necrophiliac pedophile with pictures ("fake news’) and she likely will, but her idiocy is making it an actual question and likely much closer than it has any right to be. Trump won that state by 18 points and if all that happened was that the she picked up the other R’s vote share then it would be about that margin. Any amount less than that is a result a being a racist dumbass. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/68 "2018-11-25T15:51:19Z")
To add - A smart amoral politician uses a deniable dogwhistle when an election is close. The idea of dogwhistles is that its frequency is heard and understood by the dogs but not, at least as convincingly, heard by everyone else. Thus one revs up the dogs far in excess of those who would be repulsed by such an appeal. Her cluelessness made this into a neon sign. That has the potential to gin up others more than it does the dogs. And the Republicans who voted for the other GOP candidate, who under normal times would come over to still vote GOP? Some of them might, just might, be okay with voting for a racist but one that clueless and stupid? Meh. I got work to get to. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/69 "2018-11-25T16:16:43Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > If there’s a good thing that’s come out of the past several years, it’s the realization that Silicon Valley’s most definitely NOT going to use techology to save the world. The reality is that they’re using it to scam investors, create economic bubbles, prevent people on either side of the Bay from obtaining affordable housing, and “disrupting” cultural and political norms everywhere else. Amen, brother. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/70 "2018-11-25T16:19:04Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > At some point this “gotcha” politics has to stop. You first! I know I’ll appreciate and eventually emulate your example! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/71 "2018-11-25T17:12:31Z")
(continued aside) > [@asahi](#): > > If there’s a good thing that’s come out of the past several years, it’s the realization that Silicon Valley’s most definitely NOT going to use techology to save the world. The reality is that they’re using it to scam investors, create economic bubbles, prevent people on either side of the Bay from obtaining affordable housing, and “disrupting” cultural and political norms everywhere else. It has to do in part with making “disruptiveness” a value in itself. Plus of course once the old ways and norms are disrupted and discredited, then they expect the market/public will turn to \*them \*to guide us. They are probably looking back at Gates and shaking their heads in disappointment saying _“you could have taken over the World, man!!!”_ and swearing \*they \*will do it right. (/continued aside) ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/72 "2018-11-25T18:10:49Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Offhand it might’ve been, but it was truly bizarre. Really not the sort of thing a normal person would say, even offhandedly. > > I trip over my (spoken) words all the time, so I’m sympathetic to the notion that people shouldn’t make a big deal out of something that could be a simple verbal goof. (Like the ‘57 states.’) But how do you innocently try to compliment someone, and have words spill out of your mouth about public hangings? Seriously, _dafuq?!_ > > And of course, the things she said at the debate were only ‘offhand’ in the sense of having been made carelessly _after what one has to assume was great preparation_. This was presumably her ‘A’ game, and if it looked like anyone else’s D-minus game, there should be a lesson there. > > And: > Or she could be a racist AND a buffoon. And she’s just being herself, rather than deliberately concocting dog whistles. > > The simplest explanation is usually the best. I agree that it is definitely weird. But public hangings used to be a thing (not in any of our lifetimes). Public hangings were legal executions conducted by the state after a judicial process. These executions, as the name indicates, were attended by large members of the public who made a festival out of it. They became so distasteful that they have not been conducted in nearly (over?) a century. If you are trying to make up a mock event that you would attend with someone a public hanging is definitely a weird one to make up, but it makes some sense. However, the next step that the left has taken is one that I do not understand. How do you equate a public hanging, with extrajudicial lynchings of blacks that were not conducted in public? Are you suggesting that there are racist white voters who hear her comment, give each other the secret nod, and say “Yep, she’s with us. We’re gonna start stringing up them darkies again”? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/73 "2018-11-25T18:16:53Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > However, the next step that the left has taken is one that I do not understand. How do you equate a public hanging, with extrajudicial lynchings of blacks **that were not conducted in public**? It was so kind of you to add the bolded conditional :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/74 "2018-11-25T18:28:33Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > …And the Republicans who voted for the other GOP candidate, who under normal times would come over to still vote GOP? Some of them might, just might, be okay with voting for a racist but one that clueless and stupid? Meh. I got work to get to. Chris McDaniel (the “other GOP candidate”) is perceived as being quite a bit to the right of even Hyde-Smith. Though how much of that is perception and how much reality (now that we are seeing Hyde-Smith’s positions coming into focus) is open for debate. Among other things, McDaniel said that African-Americans should “stop begging for federal government scraps,” is connected to what has been delicately called the “neo-Confederate movement,” and, well, there’s more. I So it’s extremely unlikely that McDaniel voters will be put off by Hyde-Smith’s recent comments; many of them were voting for McDaniel because they didn’t think Hyde-Smith was far enough to the right. The path for an Espy victory, and I still think it’s a longshot, is that a) Espy’s voters, energized by Hyde-Smith’s comments, turn out in great numbers; b) some chunk of Hyde-Smith’s voters, wanting to cast a vote against racism and/or idiocy, change their votes to Espy; and c) a larger chunk of H-S voters decide that they can’t vote for Espy but can’t see their way clear to voting for her either, and stay home. If these three things happen in sufficient numbers to offset the McDaniel crowd coming over to Hyde-Smith, an Espy win is…well, unlikely, but maybe not impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/75 "2018-11-25T18:30:53Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I agree that it is definitely weird. But public hangings used to be a thing (not in any of our lifetimes). Public hangings were legal executions conducted by the state after a judicial process. These executions, as the name indicates, were attended by large members of the public who made a festival out of it. > > They became so distasteful that they have not been conducted in nearly (over?) a century. If you are trying to make up a mock event that you would attend with someone a public hanging is definitely a weird one to make up, but it makes some sense. > > However, the next step that the left has taken is one that I do not understand. How do you equate a public hanging, with extrajudicial lynchings of blacks that were not conducted in public? > > Are you suggesting that there are racist white voters who hear her comment, give each other the secret nod, and say “Yep, she’s with us. We’re gonna start stringing up them darkies again”? According to [Mother Jones](https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2014/08/last-public-execution-rainey-bethea/), the last public hanging in the United States took place in 1936. > [@](#): > > An estimated 15,000–20,000 people showed up for what would be the last public execution in the United States. > > Around 5:20 a.m., August 14, 1936, Rainey Bethea was led to the gallows in Owensboro, Kentucky for robbing, raping and murdering Lischia Edwards, a 70 year old woman. > [@](#): > > He (Bethea) confessed to committing the crimes, but was only charged with the rape. Unlike a murder conviction, which would have carried a maximum sentence of death by electrocution at the state penitentiary, a rape conviction allowed for the convicted to be publicly hanged in the county where the crime occurred. And it was certainly just coincidental that the confessed murderer was black and the victim was white. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/76 "2018-11-25T18:36:48Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I agree that it is definitely weird. But public hangings used to be a thing (not in any of our lifetimes). Public hangings happened IN MY MOTHERFUCKING LIFETIME. **SOME** > [@](#): > > Public hangings were legal executions conducted by the state after a judicial process. And many were extralegal executions conducted without any judicial process. They were still public. Hell, they were big parties for the white folks, as photos of many of these instances of torture and execution, taken by attendees other than the perpetrators, show. > [@](#): > > They became so distasteful that they have not been conducted in nearly (over?) a century. The last [judicial](https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2014/08/last-public-execution-rainey-bethea/) public hanging was in 1936, and it was so distasteful that 20,000 people showed up to watch. Extrajudicial public hangings, aka lynchings, continued for a few more decades, and were still very much a ‘thing’ during Cindy Hyde-Smith’s childhood. > [@](#): > > However, the next step that the left has taken is one that I do not understand. How do you equate a public hanging, with extrajudicial lynchings of blacks that were not conducted in public? I’m not. I’m pointing out that extrajudicial lynchings of blacks that **WERE** conducted in public, were **public hangings**. Ignorance fought? One can only hope. ETA: Ninja’d by **Railer13** on the last judicial public hanging. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/77 "2018-11-25T18:37:55Z")
Not wanting to miss a public hanging is in octopus’s top 10 things to not say while running for office. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/78 "2018-11-25T19:14:27Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Public hangings happened IN MY MOTHERFUCKING LIFETIME. > > **SOME** And many were extralegal executions conducted without any judicial process. They were still public. Hell, they were big parties for the white folks, as photos of many of these instances of torture and execution, taken by attendees other than the perpetrators, show. The last [judicial](https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2014/08/last-public-execution-rainey-bethea/) public hanging was in 1936, and it was so distasteful that 20,000 people showed up to watch. > > Extrajudicial public hangings, aka lynchings, continued for a few more decades, and were still very much a ‘thing’ during Cindy Hyde-Smith’s childhood. I’m not. I’m pointing out that extrajudicial lynchings of blacks that **WERE** conducted in public, were **public hangings**. > > Ignorance fought? One can only hope. > > ETA: Ninja’d by **Railer13** on the last judicial public hanging. Nobody, before this comment, has equated the term “public hanging” with extrajudicial lynchings. The term public hanging has always and forever heretofore meant the legal method of execution conducted in most states in the 19th century. I suppose the single public hanging conducted 82 years ago may qualify as within some elderly peoples’ lifetimes, but it was a legal judicial execution. Nothing about the term “public hanging” is equal to lynchings except in the minds of the left, and I’ll bet everyone equating those terms is voting for Espy (or would if they lived in MS). This emotional screed is simply revisionist history. ETA: To clarify, the comment by the candidate, not by the poster. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/79 "2018-11-25T19:16:10Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Not wanting to miss a public hanging is in octopus’s top 10 things to not say while running for office. You had better keep that list in Word format so it can be easily edited so that if you do run for office, the things you say will undoubtedly become “racist dogwhistles” when you say them. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/80 "2018-11-25T19:44:04Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > You had better keep that list in Word format so it can be easily edited so that if you do run for office, the things you say will undoubtedly become “racist dogwhistles” when you say them. When the candidate sent her child to a segregation academy and routinely praises the Confederacy, then it’s reasonable to consider that maybe she has some racist beliefs or inclinations (even if they’re subconscious). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398.md?page=5)