“I have always depended on the kindness of fascists."

 

     One could make loose comparisons (As I had over the years) between Lindsey Graham and Blanche Dubois, the ill-fated character in Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire. Both were clearly insane Southerners who were supported by delusion that was delineated by histrionics.

     Like his late running buddy, Senator John McCain, Graham was always a warhawk so it tracks that Graham spent his last few weeks on this earth supporting Trump's idiotic war against Iran. But Graham had already pulled the rip cord on his bomb vest and blew up whatever complex and meaningful legacy he should have had.

     A decade ago, he made a game attempt to find his conscience and maybe even his spine. He wrote on Twitter, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…. and we will deserve it.” If anything, what Graham had written 10 years ago seems even more prescient now than it was in 2016. And that tweet was hardly the only time he'd publicly inveighed against Trump. Here's a fairly exhaustive list of the times Graham told the truth about Trump in 2015-6.

      One suspects Graham of assuming that Trump would lose in 2016. He never thought he'd ever have to suck up to perhaps the greatest monster this world has ever seen.

     Perhaps Graham thought he could stand on his principles, such as they were, and live to tell the tale.

     But the plain fact is that after nearly 24 years in the Senate, Graham doesn't have a single meaningful, transformative piece of legislation with his name on it. Like so many other lawmakers before him, like Mitch McConnell, Graham's genius lie in his ability to survive like a cockroach and keep getting reelected, to successfully fake relevance by basking in and staying in close proximity to those who''d actually had it.

     The man who had called out Trump for what he was- pure poison to the Republican Party and the nation in general- became just another one of his golfing buddies. Graham's one saving grace was his unwavering support of Ukraine. (In fact, he'd met with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv just hours before his death.)

     Graham had sunk to being just another one of those never-trumpers who'd bent the knee and the neck once he was shoe-horned into the Oval Office. Like Rubio, like Cruz, like JD Vance, he stood by his man even after he'd savaged his old friend John McCain in July 2015 and said McCain was only a hero because he was captured.

     Lindsey Graham became just another punchline on the Beltway- Just another politician who'd sold out his principles so he could bask in the tonic of Trump's power. He'd suggested Trump should be given a peace prize only one named after himself. Except for when he'd briefly regained his spine after the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building, Graham became just another shameless suck-up.

     But when Graham's legacy is reviewed, after the tributes and  hagiographies are written, the enduring image of Graham will be the lead image above- When Graham had a hissy fit over Democrats opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Graham acted like a titty-twisted little bitch not because he wanted Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court but because Trump wanted him on it. And it didn't matter to him that Kavanaugh had been accused of rape and sexual assault. His histrionics actually became more notorious than Kavanaugh's own.

      Lindsey Graham served as an object lesson in how easily a politician's soul can be bought and sold for conferred power, the illusion of actual relevance. And it can't even be said that he was better at it than anyone else. Washington is filled with guys like Lindsey Graham and always will be. Graham only stood head and shoulders above the rest because he was more shameless and overt about it than anyone else.