Humiliated hypocrite: MAGA cult shows visceral hatred of Lindsey Graham as Trump fails to help him
by Charles Jay
Community
Tuesday, July 04, 2023 at 3:56:49p PDT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ndsey-Graham-Trump-fails-to-help-him#comments
If Sen. Lindsey Graham had any sense of self-respect, he’d declare his independence from Donald Trump and the MAGA cult. Graham was utterly humiliated in his home state during the former president’s first post-federal indictment campaign rally on Saturday. But that’s too much to expect from the South Carolina senator who has turned into one of Trump’s most subservient lackeys.
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Here’s a video offering an overview of what probably must be the most embarrassing day in Graham’s 30-year political career. Judging by MAGA supporters’ visceral hatred of Graham, that political career might come to an end when he faces reelection in 2026.
Graham was drowned out in a steady chorus of boos from the moment he took the podium at Saturday’s rally in Pickens, South Carolina. MAGA cult members repeatedly called the Air Force veteran a “traitor.”
Graham desperately tried to win over the crowd, but nothing worked. He spoke about his local roots: “Just calm down for a second. I think you’ll like this … I was born in this county. I live 15 miles down the road. This is the place where people pay the taxes, fight the wars, and tell you what they believe.”
Boo.
He spoke about his role on the Senate Judiciary Committee: ”I helped him get three judges on the Supreme Court there. Overruled Roe v. Wade. I was on the front line of the fight.”
More boos.
He even tried a little joke, but it bombed. “I found common ground with President Trump. It took a while to get there, folks … I’ve come to like President Trump and he likes himself … and we got that in common. I’m going to help him get elected president of the United States.”
Even louder boos.
Graham kept praising Trump with such lines as: “There’s nobody our enemies are afraid of like Donald Trump.” He finally left the podium to a chorus of boos.
And what did Trump do during Graham’s six-minute-plus ordeal? Absolutely nothing. He lacked the basic decency to try to quiet the crowd. With Trump, loyalty is a one-way street. But that might not have helped given the crowd’s reaction to the mere mention of Graham’s name when Trump half-heartedly defended him in his speech to the rally. Trump took a back-handed slap at Graham by saying the senator was useful in helping him out with liberals.
Trump said:
Later in his speech, Trump again gave another shout-out to Graham, and could be heard muttering “Jesus” under his breath as he realized just how much his supporters hate Graham.
Trump then made this curious remark: “I’m going to get him straightened up. Do you mind if if come here and campaign a little bit for you, Lindsey?” (Graham doesn’t need to campaign for three years.)
Trump treated Graham “like he was a piece of dirt under his shoe,” former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Graham must now look like a total loser in Trump’s eyes. Politico Deputy Managing Editor Sam Stein said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Graham had endured a “ritualistic humiliation” in his home state.
Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton wrote: ”Trump heard those boos and the writing is on the wall for Lindsey Graham. Trump will never trust or respect him again.”
Graham carried Pickens County with 74% of the vote in 2020, but now he has to realize that he’s in danger of losing a 2026 primary to a hardcore MAGA candidate.
Michael Propes, of Easley, told the Greenville News: “I voted for him years ago, I voted for him last year, but we need to vote him out." Graham didn’t run in 2022. Another local resident, William Bailew, told the newspaper that he was tired of Graham’s “wishy-washiness."
But what’s more disturbing is that many posts by MAGA cultists on Twitter cited Graham’s support of Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a reason to hate Graham. One poster wrote that the number one reason that Graham was booed in Pickens was his support of the war in Ukraine: “We’re done with neo-con warmongers.” Another tweet quoted Fox & Friends weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy as saying: “I believe Lindsey Graham would have gotten a bigger reception in Ukraine than he would have in Pickens, South Carolina.”
Given his poor political prospects, if Graham had any shred of self-esteem, he’d take this opportunity to throw off the yoke of Trumpism.
And McCaskill made a direct appeal to her former colleague to do that.
“Lindsey, it’s not working. You cannot put aside your convictions and your character to support this man. It will not work,” McCaskill said.
“So, Lindsey, find yourself in this moment. Use this as a teaching moment,” she added.” You need to be Lindsey, not some embarrassing sycophant that has attached yourself like a leech to the side of this man, I would say to the backside of this man.”
But McCaskill acknowledged that Graham “doesn’t appear ready or willing or capable of correcting this problem.”
And Graham knows exactly what to say if he ever summoned the courage to break with Trump because he was one of the strongest Republican critics of the TV reality show candidate during the 2016 presidential campaign.
That’s when Graham said, “You know how you make American great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”
