Lindsey Graham dies

On the evening of Saturday, July 11th, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from what is being described as a “brief and sudden illness.”

Much is being said about Graham – mostly positive – so here’s a little counterbalance:

1.       Graham flip-flopped on Trump. Graham challenged Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primary and once wrote publicly on X, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed . . . and we will deserve it.” After the election, however, Graham and Trump, strangely, became close political allies on most things. Graham became one of Trump’s strongest supporters in the Senate and frequently defended the President’s policies. Although, Graham consistently acted as though he was allergic to the concept of America First.

2.       Throughout his political career, Graham advocated a decidedly interventionist role for the United States. For example, he was an unwavering supporter of Israel, Ukraine, NATO, the “War on Terror,” etc. Calling him a War Hawk would be putting it mildly. This put him on the wrong side of almost every foreign policy matter that came up in his tenure. As Bill Kauffman famously said (at Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic in 2008): "You can't have a healthy home and a worldwide empire. They can't coexist. You really can't care deeply about both Baghdad and your own back yard."

3.       According to recent news reports, Lindsey Graham left behind modest wealth, despite serving in Congress for 31 years and hobnobbing with the Washington elite for decades. In fact, Graham ranked 294th in wealth among the 535 voting members of Congress. This is a strange circumstance for a powerful War Hawk type, since one might assume that there are plenty of side hustles available to someone of Graham’s stature. How might this be explained? It could be that Graham was an unbribable ideolog who held positions based solely on his personal belief system. Or it could be that he squirreled away tons of dough in accounts that are not included in official tallies of his personal net worth. Take your pick.

In any case, Lindsey Graham has passed away, and his legacy is now left for political historians to sort out.

One final thought: As it turns out, there are indeed term limits for Senators and Congressmen!

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