
Lindsey vs. Liz: Why He Sold Out and She Didn't
The divergent paths of Graham and Cheney show how Trump has corrupted the GOP.
ON MONDAY, AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT for Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, Charlie Sykes asked Liz Cheney an important question. Sykes, my friend and former colleague at The Bulwark, brought up this past Sundayās Meet the Press, in which Sen. Lindsey Graham chastised Cheney and other conservatives for supporting Harris. He challenged Cheney to respond.
āWell, donāt listen to Lindsey Graham, number one,ā Cheney replied. āItās good life advice.ā
Harris, who was sitting next to Cheney, laughed. It was a good line.
But Cheneyās full rebuttal to Graham, which she offered to Sykes, went much deeper. In her answer and in remarks she made at two other events for Harris that day, Cheney illustrated three big differences between herself and Graham. These differences explain, to a large extent, why Republicans like Cheney turned against Donald Trump, while Republicans like Graham didnāt.
1. Character
Trump routinely says or does things that show heās malicious and dangerous. Sometimes Graham disowns these acts or statements. But he never disowns Trump.
On Meet the Press, for example, Kristin Welker played a recent clip of Trump calling January 6th āa day of love.ā Graham, in response, condemned the people who broke into the Capitol that day. But he insisted that Trump was basically right, because āmost peopleā who attended Trumpās rally before the violence began ādidnāt attack the Capitol. They came out of love of the country.ā
Welker also asked about a statement by retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Trump is āa fascist to the core.ā But Graham wasnāt interested in talking about Trumpās core. He rejected Milleyās judgmentāāI donāt fear Donald Trump,ā he scoffedāand dismissed Milley as āthe man who oversaw 20 years of training of the Afghan-Iraqi [sic] army that folded like a cheap suit.ā
Graham belittled the whole topic of Trumpās character. He complained that Democrats were ātrying to disqualifyā Trump by focusing on his personality. The senator dismissed this as a āgameā and suggested that Trumpās words didnāt matter. āWeāre winning and going to win,ā he boasted, ānot because of what Donald Trumpās saying, but because of what theyāve [Democrats] done for four years.ā
Cheney takes a very different view. She understands that Trumpās vile words and acts reflect an underlying moral sickness, which will continue to generate destructive behavior. Responding to Sykesās question about Graham, she said of Trump:
When you look at the cruelty thatās involved in someone who watches an attack on the United States Capitol, an attack conducted by people in his name, and refuses for over three hours to tell the mob to leave . . . thatās depravity.
And that depravity, she explained, āis the same cruelty that we see when [Trump] lies about the federal governmentās disaster response, when he puts peopleās lives at riskā after the recent hurricanes. A bad man will keep doing bad things.
2. Democracy
Graham says America should promote democracy and stand up to authoritarians abroad. But he refuses to acknowledge or condemn the rise of authoritarianism in the United States.
On Meet the Press, Welker played a clip of Trump from a Fox News town hall last week. In the clip, Trump warned Americans of an āenemy from withinā thatās āvery dangerousā and āmore difficultā than Russia or China. The only example Trump gave was former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: āThe Pelosis, these people, theyāre so sick, and theyāre so evil.ā
Trumpās accusation was classic authoritarian propaganda. But instead of rejecting the propaganda, Graham parroted it. āWe do have enemies within,ā Graham told Welker. āThe Democratic agenda, I think it will change America fundamentally that they want to pack the [Supreme] Court . . . They want to eliminate the Electoral College. . . . They want to make D.C. and Puerto Rico states. So, yeah, I think their agendaās really radical.ā
Later in the interview, Welker quoted a firsthand account from Trumpās former chief of staff, John Kelly, who said last year that Trump āwas always telling me that we need to use the F.B.I. and I.R.S. to go after peopleāit was constant and obsessive.ā
Kellyās account illustrated Trumpās authoritarianism. But Graham refused to listen. āThese are Democratic talking points,ā the senator told Welker, raising his voice and trying to drown her out as she noted that the report came from Kelly. (Since then, Kelly has gone further in describing the threat Trump poses.)
Cheney, unlike Graham, acknowledges that authoritarianism can come to America. And she understands that in the form of Trump, it already has.
āIāve spent a lot of time working, before I was elected to Congress, in countries around the world that werenāt free,ā Cheney told Sykes, responding to his question about Graham. She said those experiences taught her āhow fragile democracy can be.ā
Earlier in the day, appearing with Harris at a forum in Pennsylvania (which was moderated by Sarah Longwell, The Bulwarkās publisher), Cheney warned that the American republic was at stake in 2024. āAs Americans, we can become accustomed to thinking, āWell, we donāt have to worry about that here,āā she observed. āBut I tell you again, as someone who has seen firsthand how quickly it can happen, that that is whatās on the ballot.ā
3. Conservatism
Trump has abandoned or turned against many of the principles and policies that once defined the GOP. In most cases, Graham has ditched the principles and gone with Trump.
Like other Republican senators, Graham used to support free trade, for example. But earlier this month, Trump bragged that Graham had acceded to his demand for huge tariffs. He said Graham had privately assured him, āYou got my vote.ā
On Meet the Press, Graham said Republicans should vote for Trump because if Harris were to win, āI fear four more years of holding Ukraine back.ā Grahamās statement was preposterous: Trump has repeatedly made it clear during this campaign that he blames Ukraine for Russiaās invasion and that heāll cut off the support for Ukraine thatās preventing Russia from swallowing its neighbor. Graham is ignoring Trumpās betrayal and falsely attributing it to Harris.
Cheney, presented with the same choice between Trump and long-standing conservative values, has chosen to defend those values and reject Trump. She told Sykes:
When people that I know in the Republican party tell me they might be considering voting for Trump from a national security perspective, I ask them: Go look at his national security policies. Please go look at them. Because what he is proposing in terms of withdrawing from NATO, welcoming Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO allies, praisingāhe praises Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, and President Xi of China and Putin of Russia. . . . He praises them for their cruelty, for their tyranny.
At the forum in Pennsylvania, she added:
The most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, whoāitās not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election. We watched what he did on January 6th.
Graham claims to be mystified by these objections. On Meet the Press, he asked indignantly: āTo every Republican supporting [Harris], what the hell are you doing? Youāre supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics. . . . Youāre trying to convince me that Donald Trumpās rhetoric is the danger to this country?ā
Maybe Graham doesnāt understand, as Cheney does, that Trumpās pathologies go deeper than rhetoric. Maybe he doesnāt understand that from the standpoint of Reaganite conservatism, Trump is in many ways the more radical candidate. Maybe he doesnāt understand how serious the danger to this country is.
Or maybe he understands all of this, andālike the rest of todayās Republican eliteāhe chooses to ignore it or lie about it.
Thatās what Cheney wonāt do.
Good Article.
Cheney reminds me of why I was once a conservative.
Graham reminds me why I am now a Democrat.
Every once in a while I recall my first (glowing) impression of Lindsey Graham--as a house impeachment manager during Clinton's impeachment. I thought Lindsey was such a compelling advocate for the idea that presidents must be held to the highest ethical standards. The moral decay of this man is nearly unfathomable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoDKXGdi1xg