Jay Nordlinger is a senior resident fellow at the Renew Democracy Initiative and a contributor at The Next Move.
There’s an old expression: “If you have something to say, say it to my face.” As a rule, I criticize public figures when they’re alive and kicking. When they die, I favor praise or silence.
My friend William F. Buckley Jr. would occasionally write a biting obit—as he did when Murray Rothbard, the anarcho-capitalist, died in 1995. The writer Florence King said that WFB had authored an “attack obituary” or a “hit obit.”
He arguably had. But Rothbard, an old Buckley antagonist, deserved it.
When Lindsey Graham, the veteran South Carolina senator, died last month, there were many appreciations and many—well, non-appreciations. Today, I propose to write neither type of piece. I will offer some observations, providing angles on a politician of our times.
I first encountered Graham at Davos in the mid-2000s. He was in the company of Senator John McCain, as he often was. Graham clearly relished being in Davos. He relished being “in the arena” wherever that arena was.
In those days, Graham was a bête noire of the Right. Rush Limbaugh dubbed him “Senator Grahamnesty,” for his work on immigration reform. (“Amnesty,” “Grahamnesty,” get it?) Graham was also tagged as a “neocon,” in a pejorative way.
So was John McCain, of course.
“He’s like a son to me,” McCain often said of Graham. In a jocular mood, he’d say, “Lindsey is my illegitimate son.”
I talked with McCain about this in 2015. It was the second-ever episode of my podcast, Q&A, the first having been with Garry Kasparov, the founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative and The Next Move.
McCain said that he and Graham had many interests in common—chiefly concerning foreign policy and national security. They were big promoters of freedom, democracy, and human rights. They thought that both America and the world were better off with America engaged in the world.
McCain also noted that Graham was just plain fun. “Entertaining.” “Not boring.”
So true. Graham once told me that when he showed up at some campaign event or civic gathering, “my first ten minutes is standup.”
In 2016, he ran for president—the Republican nomination. He and Donald Trump brawled. Graham said, “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.”
He also said—tweeted—“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
The GOP did not get destroyed. Trump, in fact, won. And that changed everything. Many Republicans had objected to Trump, not on grounds that he would be bad for the country, but on grounds that he couldn’t win.
No one got with the program with more alacrity, or brazenness, than Lindsey Graham. In November 2017, he told CNN, “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president.”
Had Graham forgotten that he had called Trump a “kook” “unfit for office” the year before?
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In the past decade, I have heard the expression “to navigate the Trump era.” How have Republican politicians and journalists “navigated the Trump era”?
It is only human to do some navigation. And it is natural for politicians to be political. (The journalists have less excuse. Truth-telling should be more their bag.)
“You want Graham to have a seat at the table,” I often heard. “You want Graham to play golf with Trump. Better that Graham be in his ear than the isolationists, right?”
Maybe. But Trump has always changed people more than they have changed him.
We must also consider the simple matter of partisanship—“the call of the tribe.” (Mario Vargas Llosa used this phrase in the title of a book.) Graham was a Republican, and where his tribe went, there went he.
But he was probably more aware of this than most. He would comment on his own hypocrisy.
When Trump and his team covered for the Saudi dictatorship after that dictatorship murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Graham said, “If they were in a Democratic administration, I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.”
When Trump announced a pullout from Syria later in 2018, Graham said, “If Obama had done this, we’d be going nuts right now: how weak, how dangerous.”
Graham stayed close to Trump right through the afternoon of January 6, 2021, when the mob assaulted the Congress. That night, Graham said, “Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. I hate it being this way. All I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough.”
Enough was enough for about three weeks. Graham was then back at Trump’s side, along with pretty much every other Republican in the country.
In this, Graham was a man of our times, an emblem of our times—though more colorful and flagrant than most.
When the United States and Israel launched what would be called the “Iran war” last February, Graham appeared on Fox News and said, “To Donald J. Trump: You just surpassed Ronald Reagan as the most consequential Republican president since Lincoln.” He went on to say, “You’re Reagan plus, plus, plus.”
Was the senator pumping Trump’s ego? Or did he mean it?
“To live is to maneuver,” said Whittaker Chambers (in a line quoted by Bill Buckley). Yes. It is hard, and unwise, to live without maneuvering or navigating. But to a point. You have to stand for something, right? You have to draw some line, right?
Herbert Hoover gibed that FDR was “a chameleon on plaid.” Lindsey Graham once said to a friend of mine, “If you’re lookin’ for consistency, I’m not your guy.”
Congressman Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican who served in the House from 1975 to 2007, had the job of speaking to new members at their freshman orientation. He stressed one thing: Figure out what you’re willing to lose your seat over. What principle or policy. If there is no such thing, “then you’re going to do damage here.”
Lindsey Graham would have been reelected unto forever. His predecessor, Strom Thurmond, was in the Senate for almost 50 years.
One evening, Graham and I were speaking at the same conference (with the senator having a bigger role, obviously). We were sitting at the same table when our host was introducing him. Graham was looking at his phone.
Our host noted that Graham had now received more votes than anyone else in South Carolina history. I leaned over and whispered to Graham, “More than Strom?” He nodded yes. Still looking at his phone, he said, “Don’t tell him. He’ll come back.””
I'd rather have Lindsey than a Democrat in office but his backing of Trump in the second term hurt the country and the Party. He should have insisted Trump step back from being a general as Trump has no military leadership background and has been a disaster in directing the war.
I cast my first presidential vote in 1984 for Goldwater, and for every Republican nominee afterward until 2016. From the announcement of his candidacy on, Trump revealed himself to be a bigot and a pervert appealing to his own kind. I could not then and still cannot understand why apparently responsible people in public life, and in my own neighbourhood and parish would tolerate his behaviour and celebrate his ascendancy. I count Senator Graham among them. I have voted for MItt Romney in each of the last four consecutive Presidential elections, the same number of times my sainted mother voted for Al Smith in 1928. I pray I don't have to break her record.