House clears "long-overdue" anti-lynching legislation
AxiosMAY 2022
The Spin
Progressive narrative
This is a long time coming, and sends a message that America is finally ready to reckon with a dark moment in its history. The bill is a historic one, coming to terms with how lynching was used to enforce a racial social order, and America will now have greater means to reject this in the future.
Libertarian narrative
While the intentions behind this are admirable, expanding the number of things the federal government can prosecute as hate crimes is dangerous, as it risks endangering other liberties, such as freedom of speech, and the DOJ tends to have an overzealous approach to enforcing such laws. This bill also indirectly expands the federal death penalty.