Lindsey Graham’s Death Leaves Two Power Vacuums

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By Ed Kilgore, 

political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015

8:07 P.M.

Four-term South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly over the weekend at the age of 71, with no evident warning. His abrupt departure from this earth takes away one of the more influential and controversial figures of the Trump era at a particularly inconvenient moment for his allies in the Senate and his frenemies in the administration.

Graham leaves a dual legacy in his wake. Like the southern congressional barons of the past, he accumulated considerable power in the Senate via seniority and the force of his personality. In the tradition of his home state, which bears a large Pentagon spending footprint and a culture of belligerency, his principal focus was on national security. He was a relentless defense hawk, barely changing his views when the aggressive global interventionism of the Reagan and Bush administrations gave way to the peculiar America First policies associated with Donald Trump. When he died, he was characteristically right in the middle of two prime national security-associated challenges: an effort to salvage the U.S. alliance with Ukraine, and a drive to get a historic boost in defense spending through a closely divided Congress. Both these Graham priorities were in some trouble in Washington, but he was using his surprisingly close relationship with the president to make progress, as evidenced by his phone call with Trump just an hour before emergency vehicles were summoned to his home.

Transcending his orthodox conservative policy views on defense and such cultural issues as abortion, however, was an outsized personality that always attracted attention. Graham first achieved national fame as a House member in 2000, when he championed his friend John McCain’s presidential nomination campaign in his state’s crucial primary (right after McCain demolished George W. Bush in New Hampshire and panicked the coalition of the Republican Establishment and movement conservatives backing the Texas governor). Graham was outspokenly horrified by the successful smears aimed at McCain — but you get the sense the experience made him more amenable to hardball political tactics.

Still, in part because of his long association with McCain, along with McCain-aligned heretical positions on immigration reform and even climate change, Graham attracted right-wing primary opposition in all of his four reelection campaigns. (It also probably didn’t help among Christian conservatives and his military allies that he was a lifelong bachelor, feeding unsubstantiated rumors that he was a hypocritically closeted gay man.) He was forever excoriating conservative extremism and then accommodating himself to it whenever it proved necessary or convenient.

The defining example of Graham’s ability to pivot came after his own extremely unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign. Like many other big dogs inside the beltway, the South Carolinian mistakenly thought his insider street cred was transferable to the national electorate, and he had to drop out well before any votes were cast. In the meantime, he developed a toxic relationship with his successful rival Trump, as the BBC recalls:

He bristled when Trump criticised war-hero McCain for being a prisoner of war, with the New York real estate mogul telling a campaign event: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” Graham called Trump a “jackass” who shouldn’t be president. …

A few months later, as his presidential campaign fizzled, Graham called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”.

That criticism would reach a crescendo in his famous Twitter post in May 2016 that if the Republican Party chose Trump as its nominee it “will get destroyed … and we will deserve it”.

Graham wouldn’t even vote for Trump in the general election, casting a ballot instead for conservative independent Evan McMullin. But after Trump won, Graham adjusted again and suddenly became an ally and golfing partner of the 45th president, notably splitting with John McCain to support Trump’s legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, and eagerly promoting Trump’s divergence from America First orthodoxy in deciding to crush ISIS in Syria.

His willingness to go maximum MAGA spiked during a highly-abrasive defense of Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, in which he attacked Democrats savagely for their willingness to give credibility to anti-Kavanaugh witness and accuser Christine Blasey Ford. By 2019, he candidly summarized his changing relationship with Trump:

I went from, “O.K., he’s president” to “How can I get to be in his orbit?…” to “How can I have a say in what’s going to happen today, tomorrow and next week?”

The Trump-Graham buddy act was disrupted by January 6, and like many others the South Carolinian initially thought the soon-to-be-former president had ended his political career, PBS recorded:

“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,” an emotional Graham said once authorities cleared the rioters and allowed senators to reclaim their chamber. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”

But very quickly, Graham changed his mind, and endorsed Trump’s 2024 comeback early on, in the process snubbing his own state’s former governor Nikki Haley. When Trump indeed won, their partnership gained new life, particularly as the president developed a taste for overseas military interventions and tripled down on demanding a spike in Pentagon spending.

We’ll never know what Graham might have accomplished had his life and career not been cut so short, but he will definitely be missed in this year’s congressional GOP drive to pay for Trump’s Iran war (an enterprise Graham feared Trump might curtail too early) and give the Department of War a Cold War-level budget.

Graham’s death also creates a political vacuum in South Carolina. Incredibly, his seat has only been open twice in the last seventy years. It was occupied by ex-segregationist Strom Thurmond, the virtual founder of the modern Palmetto State GOP (which he joined by changing parties in 1964 to back Barry Goldwater), for 46 years, and then by Graham for another 24. Since the late senator was up for reelection this year (he defeated his right-wing primary opponent by a reasonably large margin in June), the state will hold a special election in mid-August to replace him as the GOP nominee, after lame-duck Governor Henry McMaster fills the post with an interim appointment (perhaps a placeholder who will step aside, perhaps a viable candidate whom McMaster will give a head start). McMaster’s Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, who just lost a crowded primary and then a runoff in the race to succeed McMaster, is the betting favorite, but as noted, Senate seats in South Carolina don’t come open often, so the special election field could expand rapidly. Another defeated gubernatorial candidate, the erratic showboater Nancy Mace, is already said to be interested, which might annoy the ghost of Lindsey Graham since she was one of his conservative primary opponents, back in 2014. Republicans would be well-advised not to screw around with this nomination, since there is already a well-financed Democrat, Annie Andrews, in the race, and while this is a very red state, this is also a very good Democratic year.

Wherever Republicans turn, they will be hard-pressed to find another Lindsey Graham, a highly flexible cynic about politics but also a man who was deeply devoted to the cause of making sure his country remained armed to the teeth. Capitol Hill reporters, South Carolina political junkies, and the military-industrial complex will miss him profoundly.