On Sunday’s edition of This Week, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Lindsey Graham (R-SC) whether he supports a Trump presidential run in 2024. Graham replied,
“it’s his nomination for the taking in 2024 if he wants…Donald Trump is the most consequential Republican in the Republican Party today. He has a great chance of being president again in 2024.”
So far, Lindsey Graham sounds no different from the mass of expedient Republicans worshiping at Trump’s altar to please the rabid base. But Lindsey went further. After Stephanopoulus pointed out that Trump had called him a RINO, America’s most simpering Senator giggled and continued shoveling, saying,
“Here’s my statement about the president’s situation right now. He is the most dominant figure in the Republican Party.”
Could Lindsey have picked a more telling word? What subconscious currents led him to ‘dominant’ — with the implication of his submission. He could have used ‘important,’ or ‘influential,’ or ‘significant’ - words that convey a similar recognition of status, but without the obsequious taint. But instead, he chose the path of, “thank you, sir, may I have another.”
This is not the first time Graham has sold his manhood for lint. Every time Lucy Trump whipped away the football, Charlie Graham just lined up to try another kick.
In June 2016, after Trump had demeaned him — even giving out his cellphone number — Graham said he would not support Trump’s bid for office. And in a vestigial moment of truth referred to the then-Republican candidate as a “jackass,” a “kook,” “a race-baiting bigot,” and “the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican Party.” By then, Trump had also denigrated his closest senatorial friend, John McCain, as not a war hero. In a principled man, the slight would be unforgivable and unforgotten. But Graham has the honor and self-regard of a jonesing meth addict. For him, friendship is a fragile bond. As he later told Bloomberg,
“I don’t like what he says about John McCain. But when we play golf, it’s fun. And I think he’s seen my ability to help him, that I can actually help put deals together.”
Graham is by no means the only Republican who has gone from ‘never Trumper’ to up Trump’s ass. When Wyoming’s Liz Cheney lost her GOP leadership position by signing on to discover the truth behind the J6 insurrection, Elise Stefanik ingratiated herself into the job. In the early Trump years, this upstate New Yorker called his ‘Access Hollywood’ remarks “inappropriate,” “offensive,” and “just wrong”. She criticized his attack on the Gold Star family. She objected to his wall. And to his positions on NATO, Putin, and Iraq.
But as her lust for advancement dulled her regard for the truth, Stefanik discovered her cynical side. When Trump called the 2020 election a fraud, she was 100% behind him. She questioned the legitimacy of the Electors. She cast doubts about the Dominion voting machines. And she was rewarded for her fealty with a promotion to Chair of the House Republican Conference.
Joining Stefanik in her descent from decency to deference is Rep. Nancy Mace, a fellow South Carolinian to Graham. And equal to her elder in the politics of groveling. In a CNN interview, the day after the January 6 insurrection, Mace said of the Trump,
"His entire legacy was wiped out yesterday.”
Later in a Fox interview, she expanded,
"I don't know how you go forward and defend the indefensible. ... People violently attacked the halls of Congress, our United States Capitol. I believe that every accomplishment that Republicans and the President had, and I was a big supporter of the President over the last four years ... but I believe that those accomplishments were wiped out."
Although she backtracked almost immediately, refusing to vote for the J6 commission and voting to oust Cheney, it was too late. Last Wednesday, Trump showed what he thought about her apostasy. He called her an,
"absolutely terrible candidate,” "whose remarks and attitude have been devastating for her community, and not at all representative of the Republican Party to which she has been very disloyal."
Worse, he threw his support behind her primary opponent, Katie Arrington.
Mace did not take this lying down. She made what she thought was the best of a bad situation by traveling up to NYC to plant herself in front of Trump’s gilded temple and explain why she was the best candidate for her job.
If you cannot kiss the actual ass, I suppose kissing an image of the ass is all you can do. Which is quite a fall for a glittering talent. Once esteemed as the first female graduate of the fabled Citadel’s Corps of Cadets, she is now carrying water for a man who wants another to do the job.
How do these people live with themselves?
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