Lindsey Graham: Opportunist or Fascist?

Obviously it’s both.

South Carolina Senator Linsdey Graham, who died suddenly this weekend, was a figure of evil contradictions. On the one hand, he was a consistent proponent of vicious American colonial power, advocating across the decades for war, war, and more war, especially in the Middle East. On the other hand, the last decade of his life was defined by his personal and political attachment to Donald Trump, a man who entered Republican politics by denouncing forever wars and despicably fawning over Putin’s Russia, one of the many foreign nations whose people Graham fantasized about obliterating.

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The apparent dissonance here has led Graham’s antagonists to accuse him simultaneously of monomania and lack of principles. Critics justifiably pillory him as a “warmongerer, someone eager to spill blood on behalf of foreign interests,” in the words of NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie. But they also point out how he went from a harsh Trump critic in 2016 to an enthusiastic Trump ally and sycophant—leading Steve Schmidt to famously characterize him as “a pilot fish, a parasitic sucker fish hovering about larger predators.”

So which is it? Was Graham someone who had evil principles and stuck to them, no matter what? Or was he someone who, in Schmidt’s words, “knew better”, but was at bottom an opportunist who initially attached himself to the orbit of media darling Arizona Senator John McCain, and later to the orbit of media darling Donald Trump?

A consistent Graham-first ethos

As the subhead of this post indicates, I don’t think there needs to be a contradiction here. Graham supported endless war and supported Trump for essentially the same reason—a faith in the righteousness of Lindsey Graham and in the virtue of whatever Lindsay Graham does in the name of advancing Lindsey Graham. Opportunism and fascism fit perfectly together because both are based on a bottomless narcissism and fevered empowerment fantasies. Fascists are convinced that their own advancement and their own prejudices are indistinguishable from the path of God.

Graham was relentlessly, rabidly hawkish and bloodthirsty; he was a leading proponent of the Iraq War, and he’s been trying to get someone, anyone, to bomb Iran for decades. This February, when Trump launched his obviously ill-prepared and ill-considered war in Iran, Graham was ecstatic. “The end of the largest state sponsor of terrorism is upon us. God bless President Trump, our military and our allies in Israel. Freedom for the long suffering Iranian people,” he burbled. The delusional claim to be speaking for the people whose horrific deaths he was cosigning and the messianic rhetoric paint a familiar picture. Graham saw himself as a bloody prophet striding across history, leading the way to glory and death.

You can see a similar dynamic of self-aggrandizement and self-mythification in Graham’s behavior at the confirmation hearing of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was credibly accused of rape by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The GOP in general responded with a disgusting barrage of rape apology and denialism, but Graham went above and beyond in claiming that the accusation as a personal attack. “To my friends on the other side, I would never have done this to one of your nominees, you should be ashamed,” he said in an appearance on Fox. [italics added] For Graham, it’s clear, rape is a minor concern. The real crime is interfering with the plans and preferences of one Lindsey Graham.

In this context, Graham’s famous warning about Trump: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it”—seems less like a prescient statement of principle, and more like another example of Graham indulging in his usual apocalyptic self-aggrandizement and self-pity. Graham ran for president in 2016 himself; he was angry that Trump won instead of him; he thought he would lose status if Trump took the nomination.

In short, Graham didn’t have a moment of moral clarity. He just said some shit. Once Trump became President, Graham was happy to reverse himself and devote himself to their mutual benefit. So much so that Graham attempted to help Trump steal the 2020 election in Georgia—and then attempted to get the American people to pay him reparations after the Justice Department dared to investigate his treasonous bullshit.

Fascists see their own power as a moral goal

“Venal or sincerely evil” is a question that comes up with most fascists at one point or another. Does Trump really want to subjugate non-white people or is that just a convenient way to get power so he can gorge himself and his family at the public trough? Is he a sincere Nazi or is he just a grifter?

Fascists don’t make these distinctions, though. Trump believes he has the right to rule and enrich himself because he is white and wealthy. Part of being the rightful leader of the volk is subjugating non-white people and women and trans people and anyone he sees as lesser. Part of being the rightful leader of the volk is stealing all the money because it is your money anyway and you deserve it..

Similarly, Graham sees no contradiction between bombing Muslims, smearing rape victims, and sucking up to Trump. It’s all part of the soaring progress and glory of Lindsey Graham, destroying nations to save them, seating Supreme Court justices, golfing with the president. Graham is the hero, and so whatever he does is heroic—especially when it involves defeating or subjugating ideological and partisan enemies like Muslims, women, or Democrats.

The big difference between Graham and Trump is that Trump wants to be the dear leader and only the dear leader, whereas Graham is happy enough to see himself as the handmaiden of God, a la Goebbels. And just as Goebbels abasement before Hitler was a sign of his opportunism and his sincere commitment to a program of evil, so too has Graham more fully embraced his own core hatefulness and megalomania by knuckling under to the megalomania of someone else.

Few people can dedicate themselves so fully to the emptiness in their own soul as Trump can, and Graham has over the years stumbled into doing a decent thing or two. He pushed for accountability in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal even as he tried to repress the most graphic photos; he supported the DREAM ACT before abandoning it; he supported Ukrainian aid consistently, though with the occasional time out to insult President Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently deferential to the Orange One.

None of this means that Graham was betraying his principles. It sometimes just took him a little bit to figure out where his one true principle of ‘power for Lindsey Graham’ led him—and a little bit to figure out that the best path to power for Lindsey Graham was to always embrace the fascist option.

Again, Graham is someone who loves imagining himself as a powerful scourge to his enemies and the enemies of God, between whom he makes no distinction. Briefly he thought Trump would stand in the way of his ambitions, his hates, and his self-regard. Then he realized that Trump could teach him depths of self-regard and hate that he had been unable to plumb on his own. That’s why he said Trump was “not far behind God.” It’s why he died adoring him. Trump helped Lindsey Graham embrace the despicable fascist he always wanted to be. Opportunism and fascism; they go together.