The education of Lindsey Graham (plus Senate forecast)

Back in 2016, Lindsey Graham said something very, very naughty:

Graham, who opposed Donald Trump in the last election, turned into a golf buddy of the president and one of his biggest supporters in the Senate. A group called Republican Voters Against Trump has been running ads with a clip of Graham in 2016 calling Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” which are meant to boost former Vice President Joe Biden but incidentally highlight what opponents call Graham’s opportunism.

Why would Graham have said such a thing? And why did dozens of other GOP politicians say similar things?

Perhaps he was fooled into thinking Trump was a race-baiter because Trump frequently does things such as telling brown skinned women born in America to go back to their own country. He was mislead into thinking Trump is xenophobic because Trump doesn’t want immigrants from shit-hole countries, even if they have PhDs. He was misled into thinking that Trump was a religious bigot by the fact that Trump wanted a travel ban against Muslims.

Later on, Graham realized that just as a person with a Jewish friend cannot possibly be anti-semitic, Trump could not possibly be a racist:

“He won the presidency. No, I don’t think he’s racist. Here’s what I think. You can be black as coal and if you like him, he likes you. You can be albino and if he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t like you.

“He’s about him. If you like him, he probably likes you. But I don’t think he hates people because of the colour of their skin. I think he reacts to people as to how they react to him. I really believe that.”

Graham should be cruising to re-election in ultra-conservative South Carolina. But right now he’s tied in the polls. Why? Is it because liberals are mad at him for supporting Trump? Or because conservatives are turned off by that ad where Graham sounds like a woke snowflake who’s majoring in sociology at Brown University?

Or are people turned off by Graham’s transparent boot licking phoniness? On factual matters, Trump’s the most dishonest politician in US history, and no one else even comes close. But Trump’s fairly honest when he expresses his prejudices. He says things that people like Graham are afraid to say. Trumpistas like that. Just as all objects appear dull when placed next to the sun, GOP politicians appear weak and phony when viewed next to Trump. Look for the Senate to go Democratic in November (Although Graham will squeak through).

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