Lindsey Graham crashes and burns as Donald Trump circles the drain
Lindsey Graham may be regretting the fact that he decided to do a 180-degree-turnaround into a Trump stooge for reasons that are still inexplicable. While he was hoping to be a hawkish influence on Donald Trump by getting him to invade Iran and North Korea, that didn’t happen and likely won’t in the near future, as Trump’s political muscle is rapidly shrinking. Though he succeeded in helping Trump and Mitch McConnell confirm as many right-wing judges as possible, the sucking up might actually be working against him now, at the same time Donald Trump’s popularity is in freefall.
Not only has Donald Trump become so widely despised that he’s barely leading in states like Texas and Arkansas that the Republican candidate should be able to win easily, Graham has troubles of his own back home, with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison regularly tying him in polls.
Graham should have been able to get re-elected handily – but Harrison’s attacks are evidently working – as the race has even been downgraded from safe to toss-up by Real Clear Politics, and Harrison has even been outraising Graham each month.
Now with the protest of the Jacob Blake shooting making headlines and Trump’s lack of response looking as disastrous as usual, Graham’s strategy is to double down on the racist rhetoric his fellow Republicans use. Instead of asking for a proper investigation like Joe Biden is doing right now, Graham decided instead to demand to know why Blake didn’t yield when officers asked him to – the out-of-touch victim blaming that the protests are actively trying to stop. This comes after Graham falsely accused Harrison of wanting to defund the police – two new reasons why Graham must be shown the door on November 3.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making