Oh Lindsey, We Hardly Knew Ye!
Over the past three years, the senior Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, has made a strange journey. It started with his Presidential ambitions, entering the Republican primaries in 2015.
“I want to be president to meet our problems head on,” Graham said. “Honestly and realistically, for the purpose of solving them, not hiding them or taking political advantage of them.” (Atlantic)
At that time he was asked to describe Donald Trump:
“ …That he’s a jackass. That he’s bringing his name down, and he’s not helping the process, and he shouldn’t be commander and chief.”(CNN)
And Senator Graham in 2015 was known as a best friend to Republican Senator John McCain. McCain (jokingly) called Graham his “illegitimate son.” Graham was a hawk on foreign policy, but a moderate on immigration, mirroring McCain in his acceptance of the need for a pathway to citizenship for current illegal immigrants.
But his Presidential bid failed quickly, and he was out of the running before Christmas of 2015. He returned to the Senate, a senior member of the governing party, and seemed to be a moderating force in the now Trump-dominated GOP. He was willing to call the President out when he did or said inappropriate things, but he was also able to play golf with him and keep “in his ear.”
John McCain, constantly insulted and degraded by the President, was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor. As McCain left the political arena, many looked to Graham to take up his mantel representing the “old Republican Party” against the new Trumpers.
But Graham took a different path, moving more and more in line with the President. He went from being a member of the “three amigos” (McCain, Democrat Joe Lieberman, and Graham) to a stalwart defender of the President in the Senate. It was telling that in the National funeral for McCain, one carefully orchestrated before-hand by the deceased, Presidents Obama and Bush, and Senator Lieberman were given ample time for eulogies; but Graham was consigned to reading a short Bible passage.
Graham has made himself an ardent supporter of the President. His position was best outlined last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the tense hearing on the sexual assault charges against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh the questioning turned, and the “special assistant prosecutor” narrowed in on the candidate’s inconsistencies. It seemed that Kavanaugh was in the “cross hair.” A recess was quickly called, and when the Senators returned, the “special assistant” was done. Graham took the floor, and immediately launched a harangue against the Democrats that changed the course of the hearing (CNN.) It was no longer about Kavanaugh, it was about the Democratic strategy to stop the nomination.
Many saw this as Graham’s audition for Attorney General, a position that, with the rumored firing or resignation of Jeff Sessions, may soon be vacant . But it was really an audition to a much greater audience than just the President. Listening to Graham’s vitriolic rant, it seems that he was reaching beyond the President to appeal to his base.
Lindsey Graham has made a political decision; he has determined the “writing on the wall.” He has cast his lot, not with the mainstream or “old school” Republicans that John McCain represented, but with the “reality television” politics that Donald Trump has created. Graham’s rant was a declaration; a declaration of his candidacy for the Presidency and his claim to Trump’s base, should the President chose not to run in 2020.
Graham has an opening. Vice President Pence has taken a subdued path, quietly supporting the President, but also quietly separating himself from the excesses of the Trump Presidency. He seems to be reserving his role as the “replacement”, first determined before the election when the “Access Hollywood Tape” was released, and the Republican leaders thought to replace Trump. Graham, on the other hand, is vocally in the President’s corner, and is reaching around the quiet Pence to gain the support of the base.
It is said that every Senator is running for President, and Lindsey Graham is seriously infected with the “Presidential bug.” He has made a tactical choice, leaving behind his ideology and mentors of the past, to take on the mantel of Trump. He is “all-in.”
Lindsey Graham must know better than almost anyone how John McCain felt about that choice. While it seems to be an ultimate betrayal, perhaps in their last conversations McCain gave his blessings to Graham’s ambitions. It is likely we will never know what was said. For those Americans who hoped that Trump was an aberration in politics, and that we could go back to a less polarized world, McCain, and by extension Lindsey Graham, represented hope. But Graham has seen his future, and it is a future of Trumpism and strife. Both he, and his vision, are a huge disappointment.
Graham, whatever his strengths and weaknesses, is a mudflap – a follower, not a leader. He had John McCain leader his leader. Now John’s gone. Graham, as you say, is adjusting to his new leader.