The transformation of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham from a South Carolina firebrand into a sycophantic toady of President Donald Trump has been fascinating, disappointing and uncomfortable to watch.
Maybe it’s time for him to come home. Or stay in Washington and be a paid toady for special interests.
When Graham first was elected to Congress in 1994, he was an outspoken hawk in favor of the military who spoke with a zealot’s passion for reform. In 1997, he even took part in a leadership challenge to GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Later that year, he was one of 18 House Republicans to co-sponsor a move to impeach President Bill Clinton — and got a lot of TV time waxing on about that.
By 2002 when South Carolina’s longtime U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond decided to retire, Graham ran for the seat. Unopposed in the GOP primary, he won the general election by 10 points.
Soon Graham became even more of a darling of the Sunday news talk shows in Washington, in part because of his broad committee work on defense, intelligence, judicial and budget issues. Along the way, he got to be a close ally of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and strongly supported him in the 2008 election. They appeared together so much it seemed to many that Graham was McCain’s shadow.
In June 2015, Graham threw his hat into the presidential ring with a host of other GOP candidates. A month later, Graham called Trump, another candidate, a “jackass” after Trump said McCain wasn’t a war hero. Trump reacted by saying Graham was an “idiot” and then released his cell phone number to the public.
As Graham’s campaign flagged, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Graham famously reacted: “He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot … He doesn’t represent my [Republican] party … I don’t think he has a clue about anything … He is empowering radical Islam … You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”
But something happened after Trump won the 2016 election. Maybe Graham was looking for another alpha male to follow. Or maybe he realized politics changed and he wanted to be, as he later said, “relevant.” Within months, Graham entered Trump’s inner circle, played golf with him and started touting the narrow red Trump line.
Just this week, for example, he took the lead to secure $400 million in funding for Trump’s planned presidential ballroom — a boondoggle if there ever were one — on the pretext it was essential to national security after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday.
As Trump’s sycophant, he also threatened Norway with Trump tariffs for divesting from Caterpillar. He pressured Arab nations to support the Iran war. He toted Trump’s water in criticizing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. He lashed out at a Danish leader over Greenland, which Trump wants. And he criticized the pope — yes, the pope — for pushing peace in Iran, saying the pope didn’t understand the “evil nature” of the regime in Iran.
South Carolinians deserve somebody who focuses day and night on South Carolina, not someone who kowtows to a president to feed the global media frenzy.
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