Vol. 185: A toady for all seasons

Lindsey Graham’s dubious legacy

Every group activity, from a revolution to a family picnic, needs leaders and followers. And the followers are just as important as the leaders. Without devoted supporters, Abraham Lincoln never could have freed the slaves and saved the Union. And Adolf Hitler never could have… well, you get the idea.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina who died suddenly on July 11, was always a follower, never a leader. But the relative virtue of his buddies and their causes seems never to have figured in his calculations. He struck me as essentially a weak man who instinctively gravitated to the comforting shelter of those he perceived as stronger at any given moment.

Some people aspire to speak truth to power. Graham aspired to rub elbows with power.

The ‘three amigos’

He was, as the Associated Press put it, “a member of virtually every bipartisan gang in Congress— with a relentless ability to adapt to political realities, particularly when it came to Trump.” During President George W. Bush’s second term, Graham belonged to the so-called “Gang of 14” that broke an impasse on judicial nominations. During Barack Obama’s second term, he belonged the “Gang of Eight,” a group of Senators who tried, unsuccessfully, to create a bipartisan overhaul of the immigration system. During Joe Biden’s presidency, in 2022, Graham joined yet another Senate gang, consisting of ten Republicans who supported a bipartisan agreement on gun control.

Or maybe you remember Graham as one of the globetrotting “three amigos” (with his Senate colleagues John McCain and Joe Lieberman) who pressed for American military intervention abroad in 2009, especially during the Iraq War. These guys were once so close that they compared their friendship to a marriage. But even married amigos have their limits.

Neither McCain, a Republican, nor Lieberman, a Democrat, could ever accept the notion of Trump in the White House. But Graham did. After Lieberman retired in 2013, and McCain died in 2018, Graham searched for other heroes he could look up to. Basking in someone else’s shadow was his métier. The search led him to Donald Trump, and then away from Trump, and then back to Trump again.

From McCain to Trump

When Trump first emerged as an unlikely presidential candidate in 2015, Graham (as McCain’s sidekick) was quick to lambaste him as a “demagogue” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.”

“You know how you make America great again?” Graham asked rhetorically in a CNN interview in 2015. “Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” He later declared that he had voted in the 2016 election for Evan McMullin, an independent candidate, rather than for Trump or Hillary Clinton, the Democrat.

Then Trump won the 2016 election and McCain died, and guess who became Trump’s new sidekick? But when Trump lost the election of 2020 and Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Graham rose in the Senate late that night to declare, “Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president. All I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough.”

At that point, you see, Graham assumed Trump was finished. Four years later, when it turned out that Trump wasn’t finished, Graham realized that enough wasn’t enough. Now he regularly and effusively lauded Trump. Earlier this year, Graham joked, “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”

Batman without Robin?

Say this much for Trump: He never changed. From the time he entered politics a dozen years ago, he remained the same narcissistic buffoon he had always been. The regard in which he was held by Graham depended entirely on whether Trump was in office or out of it.

Graham used to be close to Joe Biden. Then President Trump began attacking Biden’s son Hunter. Graham had to choose between a sitting president and a former president. Whom do you suppose he picked?

Look, sidekicks have their place. Where would Batman be without Robin? The Lone Ranger without Tonto? Sherlock Holmes without Dr. Watson? Andy Griffith without Barney Fife? Mary Tyler Moore without Rhoda Morgenstern? Johnny Carson without Ed McMahon? Jerry Seinfeld without George Costanza? Jackie Gleason without Ed Norton? Wyatt Earp without Doc Holiday? Henry IV without Falstaff?

But these cronies all shared one common characteristic: They stuck by their leaders through thick and thin.

In 2019, during Trump’s first term, the New York Times asked Graham if he ever worried about being seen as a toady to Trump. Graham replied: “No, here’s what I worry about. That we’re going to get it wrong in Syria and Afghanistan. I worry more about the policy stuff. And I have more influence than I’ve ever had.” Fair enough. Next question: Has anyone visited Syria or Afghanistan lately?

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com