Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a bona fide monster, hailed Senator Lindsey Graham as a beacon of “moral clarity.” Donald Trump, a man whose name is now synonymous with corruption and hatred, called Graham “a true American patriot.”
Meanwhile Democrats in Washington, praised his warmth or recounted aspects of their friendship with him, calling him a “good man.”
The disconnect reveals more about what is wrong with Washington, D.C., than it does about Graham.
The acceptance of those in the D.C. club of evil, because its proponents were pleasant to them at cocktail parties, is one of the greatest problems America faces. Morality, contrary to the assertion of Ben-Gvir, as profoundly immoral a man as any who currently walks the planet, takes a back seat in the Senate cloakroom, and at Georgetown cocktail parties, to the conviviality of the pampered lives in a bubble of D.C. insiders.
They have lost sight of the fact that an evil man who would laugh at their jokes or send them a note on the occasion of a child’s wedding or graduation is still evil.
Graham was a man who understood this and thrived in that environment. Few prominent figures in Washington have managed to be so public and yet such masters of personal opacity. He hid what he really felt or who he really was behind a career of offering strong but often contradictory statements to the media. (He understood the media does not seek consistency or hold you to past positions. Rather, it is just looking for a good quote with which to lead the next story or broadcast.)
That is how he could be the closest ally of both John McCain and Donald Trump, one of Trump’s fiercest critics and one of his most dependable allies.
It is how he could be widely believed to be a closeted gay man and at the same time an active supporter of stripping away LGBTQ rights. (He was a co-sponsor of the “Defense of Marriage Act” and voted against legislation that would have prohibited workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.)
He supported Ukraine in its battle with Russia but also backed Trump, a handmaiden of the Kremlin who undermined U.S. support for Kyiv throughout both of his terms as president. He would vote against Ukraine aid before voting for it. He would embrace Ukraine’s president Volydmyr Zelensky before supporting Trump’s attacks on him and calling for his resignation.
He regularly condemned the January 6 attacks but would often sidestep Trump’s authorship of them and he argued Trump should not be impeached. He could condemn Trump one week and argue that the party could not live without him a month or two later.
I remember his regular condemnation of Trump during the 2016 campaign and was present at one party at which he stood up and mocked Trump saying that he, Graham, would be playing in the NBA before Trump was president. Perhaps his most famous quote on Trump was a Tweet in May of 2016. He wrote, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…and we will deserve it.”
When he died Trump described him as being “like a member of the family.”
There was perhaps more truth in that statement than mere hyperbole. Trump undoubtedly felt a kinship in Graham’s willingness to switch positions for expediency’s sake and to embrace completely contradictory viewpoints if he thought he could gain momentary benefit from a switch. While Trump may have balked on those few occasions when Graham demonstrated having a vestigial principle or two, he could certainly relate to the Senator’s chameleon-like flexibility most of the time.
Trump eulogized Graham as someone he could turn to when he needed to reach out to Democrats.
This was undoubtedly the case because Graham understood the rules of the D.C. club so well that could schmooze at the home of a New York Times columnist where he would whisper gossip about Trump and then later in the week sit with MAGA stalwarts and plot Trump’s next big move against American democracy. (He was a lawyer who was an enthusiastic supporter of the candidacy of Trump’s personal anti-rule of law attack dog Todd Blanche to be Attorney General.)
I saw it with my own eyes. He was a master of the D.C. dance.
Listening to the “he was a good guy” laments of many Dems on television as the news of Graham’s demise broke, you could see that his approach was effective. Trump might have called that “being a good politician.” But it was something much more pernicious than that.
“Good guys” do not advocate for evil, for the destruction of U.S. institutions, for stripping away the rights of Americans, for the most corrupt government in U.S. history, for allies of our enemies. You can’t be a “good guy” and enable Trump as he brings our democracy to its knees, supports cruel policies, enables cuts to U.S. spending that have led to or will lead to the deaths of millions around the world. (He said he was a champion of “soft power” but he supported cuts of billions in foreign assistance including AIDS prevention programs.)
Enablers of evil in “good guy” clothing are every bit as bad as the Trumps or Stephen Millers who spew hate. The fact that they have figured out how to glide through D.C. while doing it only is testimony to how dangerous they can be.
That was Lindsey Graham. Not a study in contradictions so much as he was an opportunist who traded principle for power. Perhaps in that respect it is no wonder he fit in so well with so many in Washington.
