The most important political metaphor during the first month of the impeachment inquiry surfaced again during testimony from the top US diplomat in the Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., on October 22. Only it was overshadowed by President Trump’s new—and predictably more outrageous—metaphor for the investigation that same morning: “a lynching.” By comparing the impeachment inquiry to a lynching, Trump conjures up a host of entailments that merely spark outrage while minimizing the painful history of lynching in US society. That, of course, is the point. But we shouldn’t let the outrage it stirs distract us from earnest efforts to hold him accountable.