At last we get a clear picture of what has happened to Lindsey Graham the past few years, since he ringingly denounced Donald Trump in 2015, and then became his BFF and golfing buddy: it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Graham has as much admitted it during an interview with Johnathan Swan at Axios.
If you haven’t seen this clip yet, it’s got some real gems. Graham says that Trump has a “dark side” but also is “magic.” Never heard racist vitriol called magic before, but whatever. Then Graham describes Trump as a cross between the late racist North Carolina senator “Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan and P.T. Barnum.” I must say, of those three I’ll go along with Helms and P.T. Barnum. I don’t see any of Ronnie Raygun in Trump and I’m no defender of Raygun.
But where the interview gets intriguing, is when Graham describes the transactional nature of the thing and infers how the GOP is trapped. Washington Post:
On Sunday, though, Graham (R-S.C.) described the relationship between Trump and the GOP in starker terms: as something akin to a hostage situation.
In a must-watch interview with Axios on HBO, Jonathan Swan pressed Graham on why he continued to stand by Trump. Swan noted that Trump is no longer in office, that he pushed lies about the 2020 election being stolen that resulted in the Capitol riot, and that Graham just won reelection — meaning his apparent 2020 considerations may no longer apply. […]
This is similar to what Graham has said before. In a 2019 interview with the New York Times magazine, for instance, he described a mostly transactional relationship with Trump by saying, “If you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this.” Pressed on what “this” was, he said it “is to try to be relevant.” Graham has alternately praised Trump for letting him be a part of Trump’s world, as though he’s not a member of a branch of government that is supposed to be coequal to the presidency. […]
“What I’m trying to do is just harness the magic,” Graham said.
That’s what all the lost souls say, Lindsey. They just wanted to harness the magic. They didn’t know they were embracing the Dark Side and going to pay a price for it.
Then comes the interesting part.
“He could make the Republican Party something that nobody else I know can make it,” Graham said, comparing Trump’s “magic” to what John McCain and Mitt Romney were unable to build with the party. “He can make it bigger. He can make it stronger. He can make it more diverse. And he also could destroy it.”
What is interesting here are two things: One, there’s an admission of the Faustian bargain involved in dealing with Trump, which is justified in the name of political expediency: go along to get along. And two, there’s a large truth which isn’t being stated at all, but which is more obvious than a herd of elephants in the room. And that is, the GOP just flat out doesn’t have anybody. That’s how they ended up with a circus freak act at the top of their ticket and they still don’t know what to do about the situation.
The GOP is a group of lost souls bereft of leadership and morally hollow. And don’t look for them to figure out any time soon that the first thing to do to heal and regenerate is to excise the cancer that is Trump from their body politic. A few of them see that truth, but theirs is the minority opinion.
Until the Great Republican Awakening, if it ever takes place, just look for more of the same rationalization and resignation. Their monster is holding them hostage and there’s not a damn thing that they think that they can do about it.
Wow, he can make the GOP bigger, stronger and more diverse? In what kind of warped fever dreams is that going to happen?
They have to tell themselves these things, or else they would have to look at the truth, which is that Trump is an effing joke and the GOP is a disgrace.
Unfortunately Ursula, according to that eminent wannabe lawyer:
“No, it isn’t truth!. Truth isn’t truth.”
Profoundly disturbing on several levels. Thanks for posting about this. It’s not wholly unexpected, but very strange to hear it said out loud. I want my own universe back, where a PT Barnum doesn’t exert such mafia-don-style influence. Wishful thinking . . .
1. Knowing someone is doing dark things but aligning with them for gain goes by another word in the Bible – wickedness.
2. Word on the street is that Sen Graham is a person of interest in Georgia’s racketeering case. Couldn’t wish it on a more deserving fellow. Have fun with that, Sen Graham, I’m sure it’s all just part of the magic.