Lindsey Graham And The Voltaire Principle
South Carolina senator dead at 71
Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, died on Saturday after what his office described as “a brief and sudden illness.” This led to speculation from the conspiracy minded that Graham was somehow cut down in the prime of life. He was 71, which is about 120 in South Carolina-diet years. Graham was already struggling to maintain his MAGA credentials, so it’s not like he could show up at public events, turn down steak, barbecue, or fried chicken, and order “just a salad.”
No, this wasn’t a Putin hit job. Graham reportedly experienced chest pain at his Washington, D.C. residence and then suffered cardiac arrest — a perfectly ordinary death. Like John McCain and let’s face it Mitch McConnell, Graham is yet another of Donald Trump’s former foes who he subdued and outlived. Now, all that’s left is Graham’s legacy, which is not impressive. He was a partisan hack who claimed character mattered when he prosecuted Bill Clinton’s fellatio-related “high crimes” but later became a staunch defender of accused sex offenders Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. This was spun as a tragic abandonment of once lofty principles, but that gives Graham too much credit. What mattered most to him was the accumulation of personal power and the advancement of his own right-wing agenda.
Consider Graham’s often cited warning about Trump on May 3, 2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.” This was the day of the Indiana GOP primary, which was Ted Cruz and the Republican establishment’s last stand against MAGA. Hillary Clinton was still polling consistently ahead of Trump, sometimes as much as double digits (although there were already signs of her weakness in the “Blue Wall” states). Graham was not making a moral declaration about supporting Trump. It was a tactical argument. Once Trump actually won, Graham was thrilled to have been proven wrong.
Liberals in particular will bring up Graham’s condemnation of Trump during a 2015 CNN interview after Trump proposed a racist Muslim ban. Graham (correctly) called Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” who “doesn’t represent my party” or the “values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.” (Watch below.)
Graham didn’t surrender his principles when he fully embraced Trump. He just saw firsthand that Trump would help deliver what he always wanted. Overlooking Trump’s bigotry and ego-driven stupidity is bad enough but Republicans like Graham (and John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy, whose political careers are now deceased) did so because they prioritize the MAGA agenda even over their own dignity. If I were one of Graham’s Democratic Senate colleagues, I might take that personally. Yet, most of them are more than willing to help promote the centrist-pleasing narrative that Graham was in any way respectable.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar posted a glowing tribute to Graham on Sunday. She wrote:
It was a shock this morning to find out that my friend Lindsey Graham has died. He was a man who loved his work, his country, and his family. He didn’t have an easy life growing up and to me that explained a lot about him as well as his devotion to his remaining family members including his sister.
It also explained his almost kid-like exuberance about his job and the responsibilities he was given (even in his sixties he would get off a plane in a foreign land with a twinkle in his eye and look at me as if to say, can you believe we are actually here and doing this?).
She goes on like this for a while — it’s enough to put you off your food — but “kid-like exuberance about his job” is where I had to pause to retch. I don’t consider Graham’s enraged defense of Brett Kavanaugh against serious assault allegations an example of child-like innocence. (Watch below.)
“What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020,” Graham shouted, describing imaginary strawman Democrats. “This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.” (I repeat: Graham was an impeachment manager against Bill Clinton.)
What especially annoys me, though, about Klobuchar’s post is that just this year, Trump’s ICE goons murdered two of her constituents and terrorized countless more. Meanwhile, Graham openly supported Trump’s fascist invasion.
After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were publicly executed, Graham defended the poor, put-upon ICE agents:
“From a Republican point of view, the cops need us right now. They are being demonized. They’re being spat upon. They can’t sleep at night,” Graham said. “Are they right to want to change some ICE procedures? Absolutely. But I’m not going to lead this debate for two weeks before I can explain to the American people what I think the problem is. The problem is, structurally, for four years, the country was ruined.”
Dick Durbin shared the following nonsense in his tribute post:
Lindsey was part of every important policy issue and an indispensable player in every Senate ‘gang’. He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next.
When I was Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was the Ranking Republican. His word was good—no cheap shots.
This is absolute fantasy. Graham’s “bipartisan ally” days ended back when Netflix sent you DVDs in the mail. Supporting the bipartisan infrastructure bill — packed with goodies for his own constituents — was an exception to the partisan rule he established as a reliable vote against former bestie Joe Biden’s agenda. He even openly helped sabotage Biden’s bipartisan immigration deal for Trump’s benefit.
Durbin’s description of Graham’s service as ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee is also disconnected from reality. Graham accused Democrats of conspiring to ruin Kavanaugh’s life during his confirmation hearing and thus should never be trusted with true power. (He smeared his supposed friend Dianne Feinstein as masterminding this sinister plot at a time when she was probably struggling to remember where she put her keys.) Graham gleefully ignored Senate norms during Amy Coney Barrett’s drive through confirmation and mocked the protests from his Democratic colleagues. He basically argued that if the shoe were on the other foot, Democrats would act the same way. It was the cynical claim of the morally bankrupt.
Republicans — including Graham himself — would never forget this. That is how they’d remember a Democratic colleague who’d just died. They certainly wouldn’t sanitize his actions while in office. Democrats either believe that — per “Murc’s Law” — they must always exist above partisanship, no matter how ridiculous they look or how insulting it is to the people who put them in office and who they claim to protect. Or they genuinely believe it’s all just a game, and Graham merely a charming player in that game, one they’ll genuinely miss. This isn’t a game, however, and I think voters have no more appetite for those who think they’re playing one.
Hunter Biden wrote on Sunday that he chose to remember the Lindsey Graham who once praised his father as “the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics” rather than the man he was afterward, one who told Fox News’ Jesse Watters in 2024 that he believed “the only felon in this election is Joe Biden. His border policies are criminal.” (Biden was never actually charged with a crime.)
Even if you’re not a Biblical scholar, you still know that what people remember most about Judas is that he betrayed Christ. Their prior friendship — whatever Judas might have once believed — isn’t exonerating. No, he’s viewed worse than those who were Christ’s enemies from the start. Perhaps Graham’s Democratic “friends” are willing to give him the Jesus Christ Superstar treatment, but he doesn’t deserve it. Voltaire wrote, “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.” Lindsey Graham is dead and nothing is gained from sparing him, and the public, the harsh truth.
What really pisses me off about the glowing tributes from Democrats is not just that it reveals how much this is all just a game to them. It’s also just that they want people to think how nice and sweet these Democrats are. “In this moment of tragedy, I want to make sure we are not forgetting about me, here.” Anthony Jeselnik had a bit on “Thoughts and Prayers” that I’m reminded of.
Yes Amy, we will read your public gushing about the greatness of Lindsay and think “wow, Amy sure is nice.” The classiest thing here would be for these attention whores to just STFU.
Anyway, Graham was right about Trump destroying Republicans but not in the way he meant. Trump just turned a Conservative Party with a nut job faction into a full blown terror cult. And he proved to be a test for people in that party, most of whom revealed themselves completely lacking in character.
This is why I have no faith that Democrats as currently constructed will be the ones to lead us out of the wilderness, they are nearly mindless bots.