By Carol Lucas
It is Sunday afternoon, and again I am a day late getting started on my soon-to-be-due article. Had I started yesterday, however, with the advent of Sunday’s news, I probably would have deferred to what I am about to write now. Timing really is everything.
Of course, I am referring to the passing of the senior Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham.
I am of the generation that stands pretty staunchly behind the notion that one does not speak ill of the dead. That said, I am not about to become the same kind of hypocrite that I constantly berate, thereby making me every bit as bad as those I criticize.
Thus, while I never am gleeful at the news of anyone’s death, there are certain things I trust are God’s way of intervening … whether we like it or not. And to that end, I am going to talk about what became my total disappointment with Sen. Graham.
Some history is called for, and I begin back when John McCain was still alive. Let me say here that despite his being a conservative, I had so much respect for Senator McCain. I remember when he stopped a woman mid-sentence at a rally who was spewing so many lies about Barack Obama. That was a pivotal moment for many of us whose votes would go to Obama, but whose admiration would land squarely on McCain.
I bring this to your attention as a contrast to 47’s ramblings about McCain. He asserted that he didn’t like people who were captured; he of ‘bone-spurs fame’ went on to castigate the military folk who protect us as “suckers and losers.” For the life of me, I will never understand how anyone in the military, now or before, could vote for someone who made this a talking point. But I digress.
I mention John McCain because we all know that he and Lindsey Graham were very close friends. Oddly enough, as I was researching comments about the passing of the latter, it was Hunter Biden who said this: “When I heard about Senator Graham’s death, the first thing I thought of was before Donald Trump when he was a brother to John McCain. This was a time when a conservative Republican could say of my father, “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, you have a problem. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics. As good a man as God ever created.”
What happened to the Lindsey Graham shown above or the one I am about to further quote? This may be something we will never understand.
In December 2015, Graham called Donald Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” By February 2016, he said: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy.” That May: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”
Then Trump won. Despite knowing what Trump was, and having said so aloud, Graham spent nine years in subservience anyway.
The following is an excerpt from a piece by Michael Jochum entitled “The Great Betrayal.” In all my research, this best sums up my feelings.
“The Lindsey Graham I once respected disappeared the day he surrendered his conscience to Donald Trump. I remember the senator who stood beside John McCain and spoke of honor, alliances, constitutional responsibility, and moral leadership. We often disagreed politically, but I never questioned that he believed what he was saying. Somewhere along the way that man vanished. In his place emerged someone willing to explain away almost anything if it meant remaining close to power. I didn’t watch a politician evolve. I watched a man slowly negotiate away pieces of his character until there was almost nothing recognizable left.
“That is the tragedy I see. Not simply that Lindsey Graham died, but that he had already abandoned the very qualities that once made him worthy of respect. He traded independence for obedience, integrity for influence, and conviction for proximity to a president he himself once warned Americans about. When I think about Lindsey Graham’s legacy, I don’t think of the man who served beside John McCain. I think of the man who chose to spend the final chapter of his career defending nearly every excess, every assault on democratic norms, every attack on truth, and every excuse offered on behalf of Donald Trump.”
I have made clear my feelings about the current president — multiple times. I know for some folks this has been ad nauseam; for that I make no apologies. Democracy dies because intelligent people who know better decide that preserving their own political future matters more than preserving the institutions they swore to defend. No. 47 didn’t create what became a movement alone. He required willing participants. Sadly, Lindsey Graham became one of the most indispensable among them.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”