Benjamin Netanyahu reminisced today that when Congress was deliberating the size of a pending Israel appropriations package, Lindsey Graham would often astonish him by “outbidding the Prime Minister of Israel” — that is, by demanding an even larger pro-Israel sum than Netanyahu himself had the temerity to ask for.
Lindsay Graham was in a position of power for over thirty years and he used that power to create a high profile, glib persona who religiously promoted war and cruelty to people he lumped together as terrorists. He dodged every confrontation that questioned his motives and, as far as I could tell, wasted no time on introspection or compassion.
Whatever his private life was he kept it private, gay, straight or neutral. He always seemed to me to be a man who channeled all his energy into ambition and self-promotion, latching on to anyone or any cause to remain close to power. But whatever — he’s dead and his spot on Meet the Press will be quickly filled.
The world is a better place with Lindsey Graham dead. He was a profoundly evil man, the walking embodiment of a chickenhawk, ever ready to send his countrymen (other people's loved ones, that is) to death or dismemberment, all in the service of US Imperialism run amuck. Fuck him all the way to hell.
I don't know about nihilist Americans but the world counts on American's hegemonic expansionism. World order needs a solid axis. Given the choices, let it be an American one. For a long time to come. Lindsey Graham understood this deeply. The world is worse off with him being gone.
"the world counts on American hegemonic expansionism"? What world is this, in which you expound such nonsense? The rest of the world is actively engaged in dismantling American hegemonic expansion.
What you write in this piece is contradicted by the actions of the US, especially when it comes to peaceful transfers of power. Libya had the highest standard of living in Africa until the US came along and reduced it to a Failed State with open-air slave markets. Remember Hilary Clinton: "we came, we saw, he died?" Iraq was on the level of Italy before the US backed Saddam Hussein in a war against Iran (whose people had just overthrown the tyrannical torture state of the Shah, which itself had its origins in a US/UK coup that overthrew a moderate parliamentary democracy); later the US sanctions and invasions reduced Iraq to a Failed State. We have the joys of Afghanistan. The billions spent backing headchoppers in Syria to overthrow a secular government (whatever you may think of Assad, the US has no scruples about aligning with tyrannical regimes: see Saudi Arabia). The tens of billions backing expansionist apartheid Israel, up to and including genocide. The current war against Iran. All these are examples from just one part of the world that quickly come to mind. Can't forget the starvation sanctions (thoroughly bipartisan) against Cuba, the support for death squad governments in Central America and South America, the blatantly colonialist kidnapping of the head of Venezuela followed by control of its finances, as if US rule over Haiti in the 1920's is some kind of model to be emulated. Then there's the definitely provoked war against Russia, which has already led to the deaths of millions. Go back a little further to the US invasion (that's what it was) of Indochina, and the resulting deaths of millions.
No sir, this is not an example of hegemonic expansion leading to solid world order. It is the antithesis.
I want an America that leaves the rest of the world alone, so people elsewhere can work out the political and economic arrangements that suit their own histories and wishes, rather than having them brutally terminated (see US coups in Guatemala, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, Congo, Chile, the list is damn near endless.) A US that doesn't have military bases all over the planet. That doesn't spend well over a trillion dollars a year on war, while our infrastructure literally crumbles, healthcare is unaffordable, and homelessness is rampant.
The world doesn't "hate us for our freedom," as Dubya put it. It hates us for what "we" have done to them. Every action creates a reaction. Wish it away all you might, it's going to happen eventually. The misleadership of the United States fostered massive wealth inequality at home, while dismantling the industrial base that underlay US influence and power. It's now steadily crushing the civil liberties that form the most important parts of the US Constitution, found in the Bill of Rights. We are headed for a dystopian future, ruled by the likes of sociopaths like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, our every move and thought surveilled by Big Brother, threatened by armed robots. This is all aimed at ripping up the best parts of our history.
Then you'd better explain what you consider to be "the larger picture." China, Russia, Iran, and many others are intent on putting an end to America's hegemonic expansionism, precisely BECAUSE that drive to maintain hegemony actively demolishes any solidity to world order. Just look at the carnage US sanctions, coups, bombings and invasions have caused in this century alone. Basta!
I believe the US hegemonic expansionism at this point is a desperate attempt to remain solvent, consequences be damned. The US dollar must continue to reign supreme or the whole house of cards comes down. Just wait until peoples' welfare and social security checks will not even cover the rent. So it will continue to bomb, sanction, and assassinate as acts of desperation. So sad. Over-promised, over-extended, and lashing out like a dying animal. The world can see it. The US cannot even open the Strait that it caused to be closed.
No, it reads like an accurate account of what is happening, unlike the fantasy of US benevolence that you portray. The US is an empire in decline, whose thrashings place the entire world in danger.
I don’t know what kinds of happy pills you have been nourished on, but after 9/11 there is no room for illusions about solidity of our world order. We are in the midst of a World War that isn’t anything like the previous. And like in the previous one, so in this one I want for America to win. I don’t know how it is where you live, but elsewhere, winning really matters.
Do the people of other countries have any right to live the way they want, to form governments and economies that serve their needs rather than those of Washington? 9/11, to the extent we really know what happened that day, who organized and funded it, was a classic example of "blowback." After which the US launched a war on the entire world. No, I do not want the US to "win" this war, because it is not a war in the interest of the American people, never mind those on the receiving end of US assault. I Support Our Troops by bringing them home.
Geopolitics is like mafia. There is no, "it's time for me to quit". And if you do, it comes with very unfortunate consequences. The question of, who's got the power to do what to whom? is foundational to human and animal social behaviour. Americans object not because they want to defend slave societies to be their authentic selves. They object because American establishment has shown itself to be significantly incompetent. The solution to that problem is not to withdraw from combat but to become more competent in waging necessary wars.
if American hegemony is so bad or weak or nonexistent, and LG's actions strengthened agents that want that hegemony to be over I do not understand why this makes you so upset
Wow, what a total misread of my comment. US hegemony is weakening (which is not the same as "weak", and certainly isn't "nonexistent".) Lindsey Graham was an advocate for ramping up the use of military force by a US empire that is no longer the overwhelmingly dominant economic power in the world, resulting in the murder of many, many people, and the destruction of the means of life in other countries. That the actions he encouraged drew forth a response doesn't negate the massive damage he caused. He was no better than those convicted at Nuremberg, and rightfully should have met the same fate.
- Thr jewish-ness (or not) of SC had nothing to do with it. What did was the majority of Evangelical Christians in SC, who believe that they will inherit the earth-after "The Rapture", when ISR is destroyed in the Middle East & the rest of humanity is converted into pillars of fire. Zero out of 10 on that one, MT.
- Stupid Neo-Con idiots like Graham were/are the worst things for the USA in the long term. 1) For driving RUS into the arms of CHI, surely the biggest strategic blunder of any country in the 21stC. 2) For wasting $trillions on hyper xpensive weapons systems which don't work (Patriots, anyone?) & aren't mfr'ed in sufficient quantities anyway to make a bit of difference, except for compelling RUS to arm up & produce weapons that DO work (Kinzhals, anyone?) and in sufficient quantities for global war. 3) The opportunity cost of this, which is A)
preventing the USA's energy transformation, surely THE most important agenda item in the new millenium. B) The other part of this is preventing aid to developing countries, which, were it to happen, would generate more goodwill for the USA than anything else. Just ask China, which is doing this exact thing in SE Asia, South America & Africa. Zero out of 10 on this as well.
- Finally, Graham's sick penchant for war, which has made the US the most reviled country on the planet, and, over decades, will probably lead the US to blow up the world when the depths of its fall from primacy becomes evident to its blundering 'leadership caste' & elites. A perfect trifecta of Zeroes!
Graham was an awful, terrible person and along with people like Rumsfeld and Limbaugh, the world is a better place with him gone. We still live in hell but one more demon is gone now.
Its almost as if Lindsey Graham was able to listen and compromise, and deal with reality, and work to convince people of his ideas and positions. Almost as if he engaged in the art of "politics" which was his actual, literal job. How about that, what an idea! One of the real untold stories of this last ten years of the era of Trump is how horribly short-sighted and mismanaged the opposition to him has been. The 'establishment' and Democrats decided on day one that his election was illegitimate because of some Russian fantasy, and therefore every single thing he said and did was fascist, a threat to "our democracy" and was incorrect and the worst thing that has ever been said and done. Every single word he said, every idea he espoused HAD to be wrong, even if he was parroting their own positions from six months earlier. They were constantly referencing 'proof' that he was a fascist dictator when he dared to pull policy ideas from the 1996 Democratic Party platform. The same party whose Senate leader Harry Reid attempted to overturn birthright citizenship (https://cis.org/Feere/Flashback-Sen-Reid-Birthright-Citizenship) protested in the streets and burned down cities when it was Trump's idea. The reality is, if they had simply played their position correctly, they could have gotten him to do ANYTHING they wanted. He is not an ideologue, but rather a chameleon who will bend whichever way the wind is blowing. Hey Nancy Pelosi, you want your "single payer healthcare" or "Medicare for all"? Just write the bill and tell him it will be called 'Trump Health' and he will race to sign in while tweeting that "people are saying this is the best healthcare they've ever seen" and primarying any Republican who voted against it. All it would have taken is a modicum of 'politics' and holding your nose and even lying to him and buttering him up while shit-talking him behind the scenes and he would have done whatever you wanted. But instead they decided it was better to insult him and rip his speeches in half and the rest of the performative nonsense, and here we are after ten years of this idiocy a giant, divided mess.
Very thoughtful obituary. On a high level, I despised him for how he used his power. But since he was forced into my head because of that power, I can't help contemplating him as a mortal man who awoke each morning with a hard-on & wondering what to do with it. Unfortunately, it appears he took it out in blood lust. I mean, didn't he use to giggle and gloat about the destruction being reigned down on civilian families?
Upon the death of a significant political figure, I would find it shallow and trite to just emote how much I might have personally disliked or disagreed with that figure. It would show how analytically impoverished I am.
The one hiccup in the Graham-Trump relationship Michael glosses over is “Jan 6.”
Graham on the day: “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.”
Jan. 6 gave Graham his delayed “Access Hollywood” moment (“Thank god this nonsense is finally over”), but he soon realized it would not be any more of a silver bullet than the original had been.
I think if someone had shot Graham up with scopolamine (assuming it works the way it does in the Alistair MacLean books and movies), they would have found his true feelings about Trump were not positive (not that that puts the situation very far outside of normal politics).
Trump remembers; he says the apostasy really only lasted less than an hour:
“‘He had one bad moment, and that was on the Jan. 6 thing when he stood up [and said], “All right, now I’ve had it. That’s it. I can’t do it anymore,”’ Trump told ‘Fox & Friends’ during a phone interview.
“‘Then he called me like about 40 minutes later, and he said, “Did I really say that? I can’t believe it.” And he took it back.’ …
“Graham had unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, warning at one point that if the GOP nominated Trump, ‘we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.’
“‘Once that ended, he’d left the race, and once that ended, I became really good friends with him,’ Trump reflected on his friendship with Graham, while adding that his remarks after the Capitol riot meant ‘I give him a 99 instead of a 100.’”
It seems to be pretty charitable to describe Lindsey Graham as « conviction-driven » when we know he’s one of the most duplicitous politicians ever.
We know how in 2016 he said : « I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination » before voting to confirm Amy Coney Barrett 4 years later!
This was the same Lindsey Graham who back in 2022 said on Fox News : « All of us in the conservative world have believed that there’s nothing in the Constitution giving the federal government the right to regulate abortion » before introducing just two months later a bill for a 16-weeks nationwide ban on abortion by saying : « This is not a states’ rights issue, this is a human right issue ».
And finally, the same Lindsey Graham who showered praised on Zelensky before turning on him after his spat with Trump and thereafter coming back to praising Zelensky again!
The fact that a man like that managed to be re-elected tells a lot about his voters.
Of course, many of his detractors share the same hypocrisy : they attack Graham as a « warmonger » but have no qualms whatsoever supporting the imperialist hawkish policies of Trump around the globe, most importantly the war against Iran !
You’re right to call out the viral slanders against Graham’s private life or lack thereof. Western societies sadly denigrate celibate men as closeted gays. People can’t seem to admit that a man can give up any sentimental life for any cause.
I was with you, almost in agreement with your assessment of Graham’s character and priorities, principles and suchlike, until you arrived at “celibate”, as if he were a saintly monk type who sacrificed “pleasures of the flesh” on the alter of political expediency. Oh, sweet summer child, the Twinks and Rent-boys are already beginning to step into the spotlight now that they have no fear of retribution, and/or with NDA’s now nul and void. Not that it was a secret anyway.
I think of a neocon as someone who at the very least doesn't mind endless war, at most, he or she prefers it. I don't think that Trump's excursion into Iran will be endless, Lyndsey Graham's influence aside. I wonder what your thoughts are on the thousands of Iranian dissenters gunned down by Iran in January, according to Human Rights Watch and other humanitarian organizations. Obama justified invading Libya because of a threat by Gaddafi to kill some dissenters (500 or so?). But that massacre never happened. People can argue about the logistics of Trump's Special Military Operation, but if there ever was a regime that needs to be overthrown, it's Iran.
Graham chose "punlic service?" He was no more a public servant than Trump or Biden or Pelosi or most national-level politicians. He was a servant to the Ruling class, to private Capital.
Graham reportedly told people days before his death that he wasn't feeling well, and upon being asked to see a doctor, he demurred, because he had so much violence and war-promoting things to do. So, his dedication to death and destruction got him his heavenly reward. Irony is a bitch.
This is almost tender, Michael.
Well done.
Of course it is. He’s a Republican.
Congratulations on ridiculous conclusion of the week.
"Lindsey Graham Was The Most Effective Political Operator Of The Past Decade"
His and McConnell's obituaries should include this line - "Did more than his fair share of damage to the nation."
Lindsay Graham was in a position of power for over thirty years and he used that power to create a high profile, glib persona who religiously promoted war and cruelty to people he lumped together as terrorists. He dodged every confrontation that questioned his motives and, as far as I could tell, wasted no time on introspection or compassion.
Whatever his private life was he kept it private, gay, straight or neutral. He always seemed to me to be a man who channeled all his energy into ambition and self-promotion, latching on to anyone or any cause to remain close to power. But whatever — he’s dead and his spot on Meet the Press will be quickly filled.
The world is a better place with Lindsey Graham dead. He was a profoundly evil man, the walking embodiment of a chickenhawk, ever ready to send his countrymen (other people's loved ones, that is) to death or dismemberment, all in the service of US Imperialism run amuck. Fuck him all the way to hell.
You forgot SIMP as well.
I don't know about nihilist Americans but the world counts on American's hegemonic expansionism. World order needs a solid axis. Given the choices, let it be an American one. For a long time to come. Lindsey Graham understood this deeply. The world is worse off with him being gone.
"the world counts on American hegemonic expansionism"? What world is this, in which you expound such nonsense? The rest of the world is actively engaged in dismantling American hegemonic expansion.
This might give you a sense of where I’m coming from https://wodekszemberg.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-george-washington-americas
What you write in this piece is contradicted by the actions of the US, especially when it comes to peaceful transfers of power. Libya had the highest standard of living in Africa until the US came along and reduced it to a Failed State with open-air slave markets. Remember Hilary Clinton: "we came, we saw, he died?" Iraq was on the level of Italy before the US backed Saddam Hussein in a war against Iran (whose people had just overthrown the tyrannical torture state of the Shah, which itself had its origins in a US/UK coup that overthrew a moderate parliamentary democracy); later the US sanctions and invasions reduced Iraq to a Failed State. We have the joys of Afghanistan. The billions spent backing headchoppers in Syria to overthrow a secular government (whatever you may think of Assad, the US has no scruples about aligning with tyrannical regimes: see Saudi Arabia). The tens of billions backing expansionist apartheid Israel, up to and including genocide. The current war against Iran. All these are examples from just one part of the world that quickly come to mind. Can't forget the starvation sanctions (thoroughly bipartisan) against Cuba, the support for death squad governments in Central America and South America, the blatantly colonialist kidnapping of the head of Venezuela followed by control of its finances, as if US rule over Haiti in the 1920's is some kind of model to be emulated. Then there's the definitely provoked war against Russia, which has already led to the deaths of millions. Go back a little further to the US invasion (that's what it was) of Indochina, and the resulting deaths of millions.
No sir, this is not an example of hegemonic expansion leading to solid world order. It is the antithesis.
If US-led modernist thrust of History is not to your liking, then there is nothing that I can do for you. What kind of an America do you want?
I want an America that leaves the rest of the world alone, so people elsewhere can work out the political and economic arrangements that suit their own histories and wishes, rather than having them brutally terminated (see US coups in Guatemala, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, Congo, Chile, the list is damn near endless.) A US that doesn't have military bases all over the planet. That doesn't spend well over a trillion dollars a year on war, while our infrastructure literally crumbles, healthcare is unaffordable, and homelessness is rampant.
The world doesn't "hate us for our freedom," as Dubya put it. It hates us for what "we" have done to them. Every action creates a reaction. Wish it away all you might, it's going to happen eventually. The misleadership of the United States fostered massive wealth inequality at home, while dismantling the industrial base that underlay US influence and power. It's now steadily crushing the civil liberties that form the most important parts of the US Constitution, found in the Bill of Rights. We are headed for a dystopian future, ruled by the likes of sociopaths like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, our every move and thought surveilled by Big Brother, threatened by armed robots. This is all aimed at ripping up the best parts of our history.
Your comrades at @JACOBIN agree with you. https://jacobin.com/2026/07/left-foreign-policy-war-climate-aid
BINGO!
THANK YOU
I think you are missing the larger picture
Then you'd better explain what you consider to be "the larger picture." China, Russia, Iran, and many others are intent on putting an end to America's hegemonic expansionism, precisely BECAUSE that drive to maintain hegemony actively demolishes any solidity to world order. Just look at the carnage US sanctions, coups, bombings and invasions have caused in this century alone. Basta!
I believe the US hegemonic expansionism at this point is a desperate attempt to remain solvent, consequences be damned. The US dollar must continue to reign supreme or the whole house of cards comes down. Just wait until peoples' welfare and social security checks will not even cover the rent. So it will continue to bomb, sanction, and assassinate as acts of desperation. So sad. Over-promised, over-extended, and lashing out like a dying animal. The world can see it. The US cannot even open the Strait that it caused to be closed.
This reads like a nihilist’s wet dream scenario.
No, it reads like an accurate account of what is happening, unlike the fantasy of US benevolence that you portray. The US is an empire in decline, whose thrashings place the entire world in danger.
I don’t know what kinds of happy pills you have been nourished on, but after 9/11 there is no room for illusions about solidity of our world order. We are in the midst of a World War that isn’t anything like the previous. And like in the previous one, so in this one I want for America to win. I don’t know how it is where you live, but elsewhere, winning really matters.
Do the people of other countries have any right to live the way they want, to form governments and economies that serve their needs rather than those of Washington? 9/11, to the extent we really know what happened that day, who organized and funded it, was a classic example of "blowback." After which the US launched a war on the entire world. No, I do not want the US to "win" this war, because it is not a war in the interest of the American people, never mind those on the receiving end of US assault. I Support Our Troops by bringing them home.
BINGO!
Geopolitics is like mafia. There is no, "it's time for me to quit". And if you do, it comes with very unfortunate consequences. The question of, who's got the power to do what to whom? is foundational to human and animal social behaviour. Americans object not because they want to defend slave societies to be their authentic selves. They object because American establishment has shown itself to be significantly incompetent. The solution to that problem is not to withdraw from combat but to become more competent in waging necessary wars.
9/11 was PUNISHMENT from God. Bin Laden was the GOAT. Take your Zionist bullshit somewhere else
if American hegemony is so bad or weak or nonexistent, and LG's actions strengthened agents that want that hegemony to be over I do not understand why this makes you so upset
Wow, what a total misread of my comment. US hegemony is weakening (which is not the same as "weak", and certainly isn't "nonexistent".) Lindsey Graham was an advocate for ramping up the use of military force by a US empire that is no longer the overwhelmingly dominant economic power in the world, resulting in the murder of many, many people, and the destruction of the means of life in other countries. That the actions he encouraged drew forth a response doesn't negate the massive damage he caused. He was no better than those convicted at Nuremberg, and rightfully should have met the same fate.
FUCK OFF NEOCON. Lindsay Graham was a SIMP/BETA/CUCK/ and American imperialism is the scourge of the earth.
Realist perspective.
- Thr jewish-ness (or not) of SC had nothing to do with it. What did was the majority of Evangelical Christians in SC, who believe that they will inherit the earth-after "The Rapture", when ISR is destroyed in the Middle East & the rest of humanity is converted into pillars of fire. Zero out of 10 on that one, MT.
- Stupid Neo-Con idiots like Graham were/are the worst things for the USA in the long term. 1) For driving RUS into the arms of CHI, surely the biggest strategic blunder of any country in the 21stC. 2) For wasting $trillions on hyper xpensive weapons systems which don't work (Patriots, anyone?) & aren't mfr'ed in sufficient quantities anyway to make a bit of difference, except for compelling RUS to arm up & produce weapons that DO work (Kinzhals, anyone?) and in sufficient quantities for global war. 3) The opportunity cost of this, which is A)
preventing the USA's energy transformation, surely THE most important agenda item in the new millenium. B) The other part of this is preventing aid to developing countries, which, were it to happen, would generate more goodwill for the USA than anything else. Just ask China, which is doing this exact thing in SE Asia, South America & Africa. Zero out of 10 on this as well.
- Finally, Graham's sick penchant for war, which has made the US the most reviled country on the planet, and, over decades, will probably lead the US to blow up the world when the depths of its fall from primacy becomes evident to its blundering 'leadership caste' & elites. A perfect trifecta of Zeroes!
MUST
DO
BETTER.
Graham was an awful, terrible person and along with people like Rumsfeld and Limbaugh, the world is a better place with him gone. We still live in hell but one more demon is gone now.
I might lean toward maybe seeing your point on Rumsfeld. But not Rush. Definitely not Rush. Rush was the GOAT!
I liked Rush but he was controlled opposition much like Fox News, he only said as much as he was not afraid to say
Its almost as if Lindsey Graham was able to listen and compromise, and deal with reality, and work to convince people of his ideas and positions. Almost as if he engaged in the art of "politics" which was his actual, literal job. How about that, what an idea! One of the real untold stories of this last ten years of the era of Trump is how horribly short-sighted and mismanaged the opposition to him has been. The 'establishment' and Democrats decided on day one that his election was illegitimate because of some Russian fantasy, and therefore every single thing he said and did was fascist, a threat to "our democracy" and was incorrect and the worst thing that has ever been said and done. Every single word he said, every idea he espoused HAD to be wrong, even if he was parroting their own positions from six months earlier. They were constantly referencing 'proof' that he was a fascist dictator when he dared to pull policy ideas from the 1996 Democratic Party platform. The same party whose Senate leader Harry Reid attempted to overturn birthright citizenship (https://cis.org/Feere/Flashback-Sen-Reid-Birthright-Citizenship) protested in the streets and burned down cities when it was Trump's idea. The reality is, if they had simply played their position correctly, they could have gotten him to do ANYTHING they wanted. He is not an ideologue, but rather a chameleon who will bend whichever way the wind is blowing. Hey Nancy Pelosi, you want your "single payer healthcare" or "Medicare for all"? Just write the bill and tell him it will be called 'Trump Health' and he will race to sign in while tweeting that "people are saying this is the best healthcare they've ever seen" and primarying any Republican who voted against it. All it would have taken is a modicum of 'politics' and holding your nose and even lying to him and buttering him up while shit-talking him behind the scenes and he would have done whatever you wanted. But instead they decided it was better to insult him and rip his speeches in half and the rest of the performative nonsense, and here we are after ten years of this idiocy a giant, divided mess.
The longer the post the more idiotic.
ANYONE who writes such an absurdly long-winded post is trying to convince themselves.
Very thoughtful obituary. On a high level, I despised him for how he used his power. But since he was forced into my head because of that power, I can't help contemplating him as a mortal man who awoke each morning with a hard-on & wondering what to do with it. Unfortunately, it appears he took it out in blood lust. I mean, didn't he use to giggle and gloat about the destruction being reigned down on civilian families?
Upon the death of a significant political figure, I would find it shallow and trite to just emote how much I might have personally disliked or disagreed with that figure. It would show how analytically impoverished I am.
Good Lord now I've got to salute you as a gentleman too.
The one hiccup in the Graham-Trump relationship Michael glosses over is “Jan 6.”
Graham on the day: “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.”
It didn’t last long; he voted to acquit at the second impeachment, and by May 2021 he was saying: “Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no. I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/12/lindsey-graham-quotes-trump-iran
Jan. 6 gave Graham his delayed “Access Hollywood” moment (“Thank god this nonsense is finally over”), but he soon realized it would not be any more of a silver bullet than the original had been.
I think if someone had shot Graham up with scopolamine (assuming it works the way it does in the Alistair MacLean books and movies), they would have found his true feelings about Trump were not positive (not that that puts the situation very far outside of normal politics).
Trump remembers; he says the apostasy really only lasted less than an hour:
“‘He had one bad moment, and that was on the Jan. 6 thing when he stood up [and said], “All right, now I’ve had it. That’s it. I can’t do it anymore,”’ Trump told ‘Fox & Friends’ during a phone interview.
“‘Then he called me like about 40 minutes later, and he said, “Did I really say that? I can’t believe it.” And he took it back.’ …
“Graham had unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, warning at one point that if the GOP nominated Trump, ‘we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.’
“‘Once that ended, he’d left the race, and once that ended, I became really good friends with him,’ Trump reflected on his friendship with Graham, while adding that his remarks after the Capitol riot meant ‘I give him a 99 instead of a 100.’”
https://nypost.com/2026/07/13/us-news/trump-reveals-lindsey-grahams-one-bad-moment-after-senators-shocking-death-at-71/
It seems to be pretty charitable to describe Lindsey Graham as « conviction-driven » when we know he’s one of the most duplicitous politicians ever.
We know how in 2016 he said : « I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination » before voting to confirm Amy Coney Barrett 4 years later!
This was the same Lindsey Graham who back in 2022 said on Fox News : « All of us in the conservative world have believed that there’s nothing in the Constitution giving the federal government the right to regulate abortion » before introducing just two months later a bill for a 16-weeks nationwide ban on abortion by saying : « This is not a states’ rights issue, this is a human right issue ».
And finally, the same Lindsey Graham who showered praised on Zelensky before turning on him after his spat with Trump and thereafter coming back to praising Zelensky again!
The fact that a man like that managed to be re-elected tells a lot about his voters.
Of course, many of his detractors share the same hypocrisy : they attack Graham as a « warmonger » but have no qualms whatsoever supporting the imperialist hawkish policies of Trump around the globe, most importantly the war against Iran !
You’re right to call out the viral slanders against Graham’s private life or lack thereof. Western societies sadly denigrate celibate men as closeted gays. People can’t seem to admit that a man can give up any sentimental life for any cause.
I was with you, almost in agreement with your assessment of Graham’s character and priorities, principles and suchlike, until you arrived at “celibate”, as if he were a saintly monk type who sacrificed “pleasures of the flesh” on the alter of political expediency. Oh, sweet summer child, the Twinks and Rent-boys are already beginning to step into the spotlight now that they have no fear of retribution, and/or with NDA’s now nul and void. Not that it was a secret anyway.
I think of a neocon as someone who at the very least doesn't mind endless war, at most, he or she prefers it. I don't think that Trump's excursion into Iran will be endless, Lyndsey Graham's influence aside. I wonder what your thoughts are on the thousands of Iranian dissenters gunned down by Iran in January, according to Human Rights Watch and other humanitarian organizations. Obama justified invading Libya because of a threat by Gaddafi to kill some dissenters (500 or so?). But that massacre never happened. People can argue about the logistics of Trump's Special Military Operation, but if there ever was a regime that needs to be overthrown, it's Iran.
And such a hunk of dung was he.
Graham chose "punlic service?" He was no more a public servant than Trump or Biden or Pelosi or most national-level politicians. He was a servant to the Ruling class, to private Capital.
Graham reportedly told people days before his death that he wasn't feeling well, and upon being asked to see a doctor, he demurred, because he had so much violence and war-promoting things to do. So, his dedication to death and destruction got him his heavenly reward. Irony is a bitch.