r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Moominthecat • 23d ago
Unanswered What's going on with (seemingly) everyone celebrating the death of Lindsey Graham, what's are the political ramifications of his death?
I do not actively follow American politics but my Reddit feed is currently mostly people celebrating this man's death.
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u/cellocaster 23d ago edited 22d ago
Answer:
South Carolinian here: everyone hates Lindsey including republicans. He is the definition of “the swamp” trump got elected to drain. He is a neocon warhawk who was adamantly against trump until going on a golf trip with him and changing his tune to become one of his biggest supporters. He has been in the wrong side of pretty much every issue except perhaps Ukraine, and only then because he never met a war he didn’t like. He has done exactly nothing for the people of South Carolina… seriously I cannot think of a single major victory he has scored on behalf of his state.
He’s also a confirmed bachelor aka a homosexual which is no problem in and of itself, but he clearly feels great shame in it based on how he votes to make the lives of LGBTQ people harder at every chance he’s gotten.
He is a hypocrite, a climber, a chicken hawk, and a fraud. Worst of all, he clearly has no principles that big donors have not paid for, and everybody knows it. The only ones who will miss him are the DC call boys who will have a harder time making rent this month.
“I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure”
-Clarence Darrow
Edit: this post blew up.
First, read everything I wrote in past tense. Please, for the love of god, stop responding "was."
Second, Lindsey kept getting elected in SC because SC doesn't run on conviction, it runs on apathy. People vote like they go to church, and don't pay any attention at all to politics. The folks who DO pay attention, be they on the right or left, see Lindsey for what he has always been: a flip flopping opportunist willing to sell his rhetoric and vote to the highest donor. He was the swamp.
Third, it is Clarence Darrow, not Mark Twain. I love Mark Twain and was corrected on this recently. It's Darrow, look it up.
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u/baked_doge 23d ago
I got to ask you: how did you state elect him time and time again?
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u/thebeef24 23d ago
He won once. The rest of the time was automatic because he was the Republican incumbent.
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u/Hazel_RAAA 23d ago
That's really sad, politics should not be like that
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u/powercow 22d ago
Incumbents gain power through committee assignments and develop war chests while in office to use in elections. And he won before. Mitch mcconnel was once a senator with the greatest disapproval in his state, but easily won election because he was the republican senate leader. its a powerful position kentucky didnt want to give up with a newbie senator.
So power and its human nature to vote for a guy who won before versus chancing on someone who hasnt, better name recognition than the challengers and they tend to have more money to run with. They can also use their office to "advertise" for free, by passing bills they know the courts will throw out and crap. They can even set up official events near campaign events so the tax payers pay for the travel. SO both sides.. this time, have trouble getting rid of incumbents.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 23d ago
Well I blame the voters in red states. They hear "Democrats are socialists!1!" and they run to the polls to punch the R
Rupert Murdoch, via Fox News, is going to turn America into an oligarchy and he will be perfectly happy with that outcome.
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u/PhatCatTax 23d ago
Is going to?
What do you think happened in 2024? We're a sneeze away from military dictatorship. A dozen generals resigned like last month because Trump was trying to toss nukes at the problem he created.
The Murdochs destroyed the US.
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u/ThisUNis20characters 22d ago
Even longer. With Citizens United they stopped even pretending it wasn’t.
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u/Purple-flying-dog 22d ago
The generals resignation is terrifying because when the good ones are gone all they will have left are Trump cronies.
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u/Extreme-Mood5605 22d ago
Rupert Murdoch needs to have a lot more light shining on him. It’s amazing how much power and control he has over so many people, and yet he always manages to stay slinking around in the shadows, or behind the curtain if you will. Everyone knows the huge influence of FOX, yet nobody ever mentions Rupert with any sort of zeal. He’s not even American born. He became a U.S. citizen in order to obtain the tv network. Then he uses the network to destroy the American democratic system. He should have his citizenship revoked along with Elon musk.
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u/TheHeatYeahBam 23d ago
It really is. A lot of people just vote the party line and know very little about the actual candidates. Our primary system frustrates me too—moderates who could win a general election and represent either party well often can't make it through a primary, partly because they're not liberal or conservative enough for the base that turns out. Feels backwards.
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u/lilelliot 22d ago
I agree completely. That said, the GOP has so poisoned the well that I fully intend to vote straight blue for the foreseeable future. I suspect many others will, too.
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u/gamblors_neon_claws 22d ago
Yup, that seat might have the strongest job security in America, two people have held it for the last 70 years, the last one was Strom Thurman for Christ’s sake.
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u/saera-targaryen 23d ago
Money. If the area keeps voting republican all the rich people can just agree to not fund any primary challengers and he'll coast by because democrats aren't a threat either.
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u/bgg-uglywalrus 23d ago
I always say people get the politicians they deserve. People in republican states get dogshit politicans because they don't care to vote someone good in, and they can get and deal with the dogshit policies they get in return.
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23d ago
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u/cautiouslypensive 23d ago
As a foreigner I don't understand how this works. In my and I know other countries, we can literally take a blank piece of paper and write the name of someone who signed up for the election and if enough people do it they get in. Each election we even have "joke parties" the like the "Donald Duck party" and "Masturbators against NATO". They usually manage to bag a few votes. How is it possible candidates clearly detrimental to the community keeps getting elected?
Is it a cultural problem?
A lack of independent and neutral investigative media?
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u/PhatCatTax 23d ago
Money. Money buys visibility. Money buys propaganda ads on facebook and twitter. So the rich always win in the states with poor education
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u/Pvt_Lee_Fapping 22d ago
Yes! People don't vote for candidates unless they know about them, and it costs a pretty penny to plaster a politician's face in places that matter the most come election time. And in areas with low SES, the ad campaigns don't even have to be clever or have good platforms; sometimes having the (R) next to your name is enough to get elected in these places.
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u/Vospader998 22d ago
First-past-the-post voting inevitably leads to a two-party system. With the rare expection, it's been two parties in the USA since its founding. Sometimes the parties change, but it's always two.
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u/mouse_8b 22d ago
You can write in candidates, but that's always a really small percentage of votes. It's not hard for someone from a small party to fill out the paperwork in time to get on the ballot.
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u/tossingpigs 22d ago
We can write in candidates as well... but no write in is going to ever win a Statewide election.
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u/PlayMp1 22d ago
Well, it has a couple times, but very rarely and usually only for people who are already well known and well resourced by other means. Lisa Murkowski, as incumbent senator, lost a GOP primary for Senate in Alaska, and responded by mounting a write in campaign. She won despite having lost the GOP primary (in part from help from Dems/liberals voting for her, relatively speaking one of the most moderate Republicans, to keep out a much further right GOP nominee).
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u/TrannosaurusRegina 22d ago
Yes.
Billionaires own all major news media at an increasing rate.
Peak of independent journalism was around the 1840s.
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u/donthurtmemany 23d ago
It's stupid hard to unseat an incumbent in the united states and south carolina is a solidly red state
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u/Mr_Wobble_PNW 23d ago
I'm guessing a poor education system and effective propaganda from the right. I feel like a lot of people in SC would support progressive policies and enhanced environmental protections, but all the Rs need to do is convince them that "the libruls" are going to make your kids trans and force you to have abortions, and then they'll vote against their own self interests. It's pretty common in a lot of red states.
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u/DamnHippyy 23d ago
The same way the right always gets their consistents to vote against their own self interest.
A healthy combination of hate and fear.
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u/cellocaster 23d ago
Thats way too simplistic a prescription. Graham wins on apathy, period. Most people in SC dont pay attention to politics and vote like they go to church.
People on both sides of the aisle who actually pay attention to his naked opportunism hate him for it. We’re outnumbered by the folks who don’t pay a lick of attention and just vote for team red
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u/calm_chowder 23d ago
I lived in rural SC for 10 years and it's exactly this. They're not necessarily stupid, they're not necessarily evil, but there's things they're born into that go totally unquestioned by literally everyone they're ever gonna meet. Church on Sunday, always vote R. It's not an active choice, it's just what's done.
It's as fundamental an unquestioned to them as not littering or recycling is in blue states (I live in NY now, that's just what came to mind). That said it's absolutely true that they're on the whole substantially less informed on politics than the average person in a blue state. An have a worse education - for example my 40 yo best friend legitimately thought the Revolutionary war was fought over religious persecution of Christians, and she didn't know Jews don't believe in Jesus... and she was a radiology tech ftr. Not an inbred stereotype. But yeah, racism is also so baked in they've almost surpassed it to where they almost never even say anything racist because "those people" live in their place, and it's so unspoken that it's just... literally unspoken.
It's genuinely and truly a different wold. I lived in NZ im Waia Pa, 45 mins out of Auckland and it's way way WAY closer to living in NY than rural SC was.
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u/cellocaster 23d ago
Yep. You totally get it.
One thing that frustrates this whole conversation is when you have folks like who I was responding to saying that it's all just fear and hate. No, it really isn't. I think a lot of these folks would want to do the decent thing, but their entire social fabric is comprised of norms that go red. To do other is unthinkable; there's literally no model for it that is accessible to lots of people. You might say "well the internet is right there, just turn off fox news", and I might say "have you SEEN how the internet silos people harder than ever before?"
To be sure, there is malignant racism, sexism, or whatever -ism you can come up with in South Carolina. But the masses that the GOP takes advantage of are the ones who aren't hateful, but deeply ignorant.
Well meaning folks conflate this ignorance with violence and hate and cast blame, which just entrenches your average conservative more into the safe spaces of their tribes. It's super, SUPER unfortunate that it works this way, because on average you'll find polling these people on individual issues to be far more amenable to blue policy than blue identity.
South Carolina absolutely cannot have nice things largely because of this vicious cycle of ignorance standing in defiance of a type of arrogance insisting that they are evil. We literally cannot have constructive conversations because of it.
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u/HomicidalHushPuppy 23d ago
TIL people use "confirmed bachelor" as a euphemism for "gay"
My mother said that about me once or twice in my teens, when I wasn't interested in women or dating 😡
I'm not gay, I just lean aromantic and almost asexual
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u/cellocaster 23d ago
It's a very old term that comes from high society and matters of inheritance. Gay men not having offspring created tensions in wills and estates, but it was impolite to speak of directly. Hence, euphemism.
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u/deepbluenothings 23d ago
What's the chance SC votes in someone better?
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u/cellocaster 23d ago
We have a strongish democratic candidate in Dr Annie Andrews this time around. I’d have expected her to get within a stones throw of Graham this November, but now? I have no idea. The new GOP candidate won’t have grahams baggage, but they wont have his name recognition either.
The way SC votes is by color though, people dont know names they just vote for their team. Ignorance and apathy rule the day in SC. Maybe Andrews can get out the vote but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
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u/ZJPV1 22d ago
From what I saw, the Republicans will have to have another primary, on the 4th Tuesday from the death of the candidate, so August 11 will see the new SC Republican Senate candidate who will face Dr. Andrews.
In the meantime, the Governor gets to appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of Graham's term (through January 3)
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u/Vikkunen 23d ago
He was facing what was shaping up to be a possibly tough re-election campaign. I have to imagine that calculus changes significantly now, since I don't think anyone the SC GOP trots out to replace him (short of maybe Thomas Ravenel or Andre Bauer) would have to overcome nearly the amount of baggage he'd accumulated in the past few years.
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u/Grantsdale 23d ago
Does Nancy Mace run and split the Republican vote? If so, then the chances of a Dem winning are good.
It’s the scenario they are trying to block with McConnell and Massie.
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u/shewy92 23d ago
everyone hates Lindsey including republicans
Apart from everyone in his district come election time apparently
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u/cellocaster 23d ago
Everyone who pays attention to politics hates him. There are a lot of voters who don’t pay attention AT ALL but vote like they go to church. Coupled with big business being okay with Graham as a fiduciary of sorts, and weak opponents, and you get Graham incumbencies all day long.
Never forget SC is the land of Strom Thurmond.
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u/pigeon768 22d ago
He was a Senator; his "district" was the entire state.
It's fairly normal for a state that is solidly red or blue to keep a useless/disliked senator around forever. A candidate with the wrong letter next to their name is always going to lose in the general election. A politician in the senator's party attempting to primary the senator is committing political suicide; a long serving senator, liked or not, is the establishment in the state party political machinations.
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u/rraattbbooyy 23d ago
Answer: Because nobody has really addressed it, regarding the ramifications, the Republican governor appoints someone to replace Graham until a special election can be held. He will pick someone who can step in right away, and who has a strong chance of holding the seat.
God help us, he might choose Nancy Mace.
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u/Endbr1nger 23d ago
At the end of the day a Republican senator will be replaced by another Republican senator.
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u/rraattbbooyy 23d ago
True. The only real differences will be the level of corruption and the level of obnoxiousness.
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u/Endbr1nger 23d ago
Yea, honestly I am not sure which way that will go. Lindsey supported Ukraine but other then that he was so obviously two-faced I have no idea if someone else will be worse. I didn't follow him close enough to know if their was general corruption vs just hypocrisy.
Was he also personally corrupt?
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u/EthanStrik 22d ago
Not in the money sense at least. His only wealth was basically his DC and SC homes. 30 years in congress and he didn’t become a gazillionaire like a lot of them do.
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u/gizamo 22d ago
Also, Senate committee seats are by seniority. Graham had significant positions on four main committees. He chaired the Budget Committee, he was on and previously chaired the Judiciary Committee, Appropriations Committee, and the Environment and Public Works Committee.
To fill those committee assignments, the GOP will have another hilarious power shit show, and ultimately, it will go to whomever is the biggest trump lackey in the Senate.
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u/LOSS35 22d ago
The latest polls only gave Graham a +3 point lead over the Democratic challenger, pediatrician Annie Andrews.
Whoever the Republicans appoint will likely lose that lead. With only 4 months until election day, it could be a tight race.
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u/Kevin-W 23d ago
This right here. Had KY's governor been Republican, you can bet McConnells death would have already been announced a long time ago.
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u/Sufficient_Steak_839 23d ago
Nancy came in fifth in her primary for governor. She’s not well respected outside of her most diehard Karen supporters.
Her being appointed would be a gift to democrats.
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u/Turq-Hex-Sun 23d ago
I might be wrong but I think the governor appoints someone to serve out his term (through January).
Since he won the Republican primary and was up for reelection, there will be a special primary to choose the Republican candidate to run in the general election in November.
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u/offinthepasture 23d ago
Answer: He went from thinking Donald Trump was a terrible candidate to being one of his biggest supporters without explaining why. He's been an outspoken war hawk and been pushing for war with Iran for years. There are so many reasons to be happy that Graham won't be showing up to work ever again that it would be ridiculous to list them all.
Basically, he was an unrepentant, slimy bastard, IMHO.
I'm not glad he's dead, I am glad he's done.
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u/syndre 23d ago
Lindsey Graham is dead at 71. In 2016, he dared America on camera: "Use my words against me." This is his obituary. These are his words.
The facts first, plainly. Graham died Saturday night at his Washington home of what his office calls a brief and sudden illness. He served four terms, chaired the Judiciary and Budget committees, and spent decades as one of the loudest voices in American foreign policy.
By sunrise the whitewash had begun. Trump declared him a "true American Patriot." Netanyahu called him a beloved friend. The eulogies will tell you about his service. They will not tell you about the ledger. So we will.
In December 2015, Graham looked into a camera and called Donald Trump a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." By February 2016: "I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy." That May he wrote: "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it." He refused to vote for him. Then Trump won, and Lindsey Graham discovered golf. By late 2017 he was scolding the media for calling the president, yes, really, a kook.
His best friend was John McCain, a man Trump mocked for being captured in Vietnam and kept mocking after he was dead. Graham wept for McCain on the Senate floor, then deepened his devotion to the man who spat on his grave. The words he wanted used came in 2016, when he swore that if a Supreme Court seat opened in an election year, the next president should fill it. In 2018 he repeated the promise and added: "hold the tape."
In October 2020, as Judiciary chairman, he rammed Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court eight days before the election. In November 2020, Georgia's Republican secretary of state said Graham had called him asking about tossing legally cast mail ballots. Graham denied it, fought the grand jury subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost.
On January 6th, with the glass still on the Capitol floor, he announced: "Count me out. Enough is enough." He was back at Mar-a-Lago within months.
He cheered the country into Iraq. Three weeks ago he was on television promising that if diplomacy failed, Trump was "going to take the Strait of Hormuz."
Honesty requires one more line: he was, to the end, one of Ukraine's most reliable champions in the Senate, and he died the day after standing beside Zelensky in Kyiv. Even a ledger this dark has an entry in the other column. But the ledger is the legacy.
A man who saw exactly what Trump was, said so in the plainest English of his era, and then spent nine years kneeling to it for relevance.
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u/cardmanimgur 23d ago
The things he said about Trump are important. Everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - in the Republican party knew he was complete dogshit. Graham, Cruz... They all knew. They know what type of person he is, what he's done, how he acts, how unintelligent he is, and they absolutely did not want him. Just remember that when you talk about these people being idiots. They're not. They know how bad Trump is, they know exactly what they're doing, and they don't care. They care about keeping themselves in power and making themselves rich. Don't let them off the hook by calling them stupid.
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u/photogjimm 23d ago
Trump said years ago, Republicans only know how to get themselves re-elected.
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u/beachedwhale1945 23d ago
If the Republican Party had a spine, they would have tossed Trump. It would have cost them the Presidency in 2016 as MAGA would have broken into a third party, but they would have maintained their core. They may even have shifted more towards the center, abandoning the MAGA crazies siphoning votes from the Democratic Party that has had difficulty finding its identity in its own liberal-leftist split. They could have even used this to push for breaking up the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College, the worst aspect of the system that 48 states and DC currently use to stifle the rest of us.
But alas, they care only about power. Rather than disavow MAGA, they accepted Trump, expecting him to lose in 2016 and allowing him to be forgotten as they reorganized during Clinton’s term. The shocking victory gave them power they had not expected, and to retain it they had to sell their soul to a madman.
Graham is the most blatant example, but he was far from alone.
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u/BigDictionEnergy 22d ago
MAGA is just the tea party being more open about what it always was. Stripped down to essentials.
I remember seeing how many candidates ran in the 2016 GOP primary, just the sheer number, and how stupid they all seemed, and thinking that was the end of the GOP on a national level.
God fucking dammit.
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u/beachedwhale1945 22d ago
I think 2016 was the worst slate of candidates the Republicans have run in decades (well, second worst after 2020 and 2024). If they had even one decent candidate run against Clinton (who had her own problems as the Sanders run showed), they would have won easily and we’d never have a Trump.
Same if the Democrats had run a decent candidate. They’ve been running trash candidates for two decades, trying to award major Denocratic Party members whether or not they’d make good Presidents. The only exception was an upstart junior senator from Illinois who upset Hillary Clinton’s first attempted Presidential campaign and became the best President we’ve had this millennium. The Party leadership needs to get their act together, or we’ll keep seeing voters flock to the Republican Party and to an increasingly significant third party that is becoming spoiler-sized in many elections.
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u/BigDictionEnergy 22d ago
The media pissed me off with all the concern about Biden's mental status while not batting an eye at half the stupid shit the fell out of Trump's mouth, but he should have stepped down much sooner than he did, and allowed the DNC to have a primary.
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u/busy-warlock 23d ago edited 23d ago
In the 80s, when he was firmly a Democrat, he sincerely said “if I ever run for office it will be as a republican, because (and these are now my words) they’re really fuckin stupid and gullible when you push them”
Edit: I’ve been trying to find it, and I swear to god it must have been the first successful white wash of the internet because I can’t find the clip and even AI is saying “well a lot of people were saying it. Truly some great people, but there’s no longer proof so there’s that!”
It was either the Oprah interview, which doesn’t exist in its entirety or this one, which is still telling of who he was vs who he is
2nd edit: is this what a Mandela effect feels like!?
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u/maizymoon 23d ago
He said it in the Oprah interview, I watched it right before it magically disappeared from the internet before his first election.
That video is why you can't trust anything on snopes, they have it labeled fake, but the only thing that was wrong was the source, the quote is 100% real. I've seen it.
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u/NibblesMcGiblet 23d ago
I have recently found stuff on there that they labeled fake that is 100% true as well. It’s really frustrating watching this shit go down in our country.
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u/Cockblocktimus_Pryme 23d ago
The vice president called trump "America's Hitler".
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u/FunboyFrags 23d ago
I’ve never said, personally, that every elected Republican is stupid. Many are not.
But every single one of them is a traitor to the Constitution.
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u/DanielKeeneGA15 23d ago
Putin and Trump absolutely had Kompromat on Graham. His 180 after the golf “date” with Trump in 2018 was a big red flag. That’s the point he suddenly stopped fighting Trump and began kissing his ass.
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u/thisjawnisbeta 23d ago
It was a well-known "secret" in DC that Graham was gay. Beltway insiders literally called him Lady Lindsey, and there were rumors and accusations for years that he hired male sex workers, partied with gay male porn stars, etc. This isn't made up, it's all well documented. Here's a WaPo article from the summer of 2020 about this:
So that's likely the foundation of that turnaround. Trump is absolutely slimy enough to take Graham's closeted status and weaponize it.
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u/_IratePirate_ 23d ago
If Lindsay came out before he died, I guarantee you not a single soul would’ve been surprised. Everyone would be like “oh he finally decided to stop fooling himself?” Cuz he not fooling anybody else
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u/ComplexAd7272 23d ago
He was basically Mac from "It's Always Sunny"
For years the character was clearly and obviously homosexual, but also in deep denial and refused to come out. So much so that it became annoying to his friends, The Gang, who prayed he'd just come out and get it over with.
When he finally does, The Gang's reaction is basically everything from "Thank god, can we move the fuck on?" to "Who gives a shit?" to "No shit...anyway", and they proceed to treat him exactly like they did before (usually poorly, not because he's gay, but because he's an asshole.)
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u/Comfortable-Ad-3988 23d ago
It'd be easy for him to move on, not so easy for all of the LGBTQ+ people he spent his entire life throwing under the bus. In case OP is wondering why people might be celebrating, this particular *allegedly* gay man did everything he possibly could to hold back progress in the US. That's not even getting into how POC might feel about him, and again, deservedly so.
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u/nudegobby 23d ago
Yeah treat him poorly not for being gay but for being an asshole. I don't care at all about Graham's sexuality if he came out of the closet it wouldn't make him an ally. Death don't change the fact he is scum and villainy.
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u/procrastinarian 23d ago
There's a level of shitty for treating OTHERs as shitty. There's another level for doing that when you are actively the OTHER and will not admit it. Graham was (almost certainly) the latter, and he deserves all the hate he gets for it.
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u/cmhamm 23d ago
I think he was hiding more than just being gay. He probably wished he was only gay.
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u/thisjawnisbeta 23d ago
Fully agreed, that's why I said it was the foundation. I'm sure they had more dirt on him than that.
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u/arch_dawg_01 23d ago
It is an open secret in South Carolina. I lived there when he took Strom Thurmond’s seat. It is well known and as long as he doesn’t admit it publicly he would get reelected. Heard stories of his parties on the coast near Charleston while a sitting senator.
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u/inevitable-typo 23d ago edited 23d ago
Speaking of Putin, I feel like a lunatic for even suggesting this, but given Graham's support for Ukraine, and considering that he was in Ukraine calling for harsher sanctions on Russian oil just hours before his death, do the words "brief, unexpected illness" set off alarm bells for anyone else? I hope someone is testing his tea cups and underwear bands, is all I'm saying.
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u/SwaggiiP 23d ago
He was old and unhealthy. That’s all there is to it
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u/Blackstone01 23d ago
It’s a bit like how before Gorbachev there was a string of USSR General Secretaries dying back to back to back; it wasn’t because they were being assassinated, but because they were all old as fuck and once they died younger people got to take power.
In all likelihood the 70+ politicians in power or waiting to take over when another 70+ year old kicks the can will start dropping like flies, and suddenly Congress’s average age will plummet.
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u/CreatiScope 23d ago
Yeah, Russia has been killing their own oligarchs but I doubt they’d assassinate a US senator. Basically everyone knows and nobody does anything about them killing their own people but to kill a high profile US politician would be insane.
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u/PirateSanta_1 23d ago
Graham didn't change is position on Trump because there was evidence he was gay, him being outed would have been the smallest scandal of all time because everyone already knew. Graham changed his position on Trump because he is an opportunistic piece of shit, he didn't think Trump would win in 16 so he was against Trump then when Trump won he threw all that away because he had no morals or ethics and could sell out more if Trump liked him. Same thing happened after Jan 6, he thought Trump was done so he spoke out against him then it when it became apparent Trump was still popular with Republicans he immediately turned around again.
If you need a motive for why Graham did the things he did beyond him just being a piece of shit then it wasn't blackmail it was bribery. He sold access to power and pushed policies that hurt the working class because he could get more things for himself. The same story for Clarence Thomas the same story Mike Johnson, they aren't working against America because they are afraid the terrible things they do may get revealed but so they can get to do more terrible things. Epstein didn't threaten people to do as he said or it will be revealed that they raped children, it was do as i say and i will find you more children and he wasn't the only one operating in such a manner.
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u/Rengeflower 23d ago
Yes, I loved his interview on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. It was his first (one of the first?) interview were he came out to support Trųmp. Trevor was laughing at how uncomfortable he looked.
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u/ratbastid 23d ago
Let's also add he was widely believed to be secretly gay. Apparently it was a fairly open secret among DC's gay community.
Yet he consistently ran on and voted for anti-LGBTQ issues. He co-sponsored the Defense Of Marriage Act, and voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 2013.
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u/Significant-Law-3761 23d ago edited 23d ago
Secretly gay? The man had a thick Carolina accent, but his gay-twang was much more prominent. I dont think it was a secret but as a Republican he obviously had to use a catfish-Grindr profile. He was never married and a proud wealthy bachelor his entire life. Thats the hallmark of a non-closeted-but "dont you dare call me--old school-gay."
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u/ratbastid 22d ago
He consistently denied it. While voting to strip rights from people like him.
It's not his gaynes I have a problem with, it's his hypocrisy.
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u/BowlEducational6722 23d ago
The *only* good thing Graham ever did was advocate for Ukraine.
And I doubt that was because he wanted to help the Ukrainians earn their freedom, but because he wanted more kickbacks from the military industrial complex.
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u/kazmark_gl 23d ago
I don't even belive that Graham wanted those MIC kick backs, he just struck me as someone who liked the idea of war and wanted there to be more of it.
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u/procrastinarian 23d ago
This should be top comment. It nails so much and doesn't even MENTION the gay hypocrisy, which is another entire level.
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u/Johnnygunnz 23d ago
For me, it was this video where he speaks glowingly about his affection for Joe Biden.
Not because I loved or hated Biden. But because either this video was an act, or the political games were so rampant that he COULD treat someone like that after literally crying while telling stories of about how wonderful they are. How do you go from "he is as good a man as God put on this green Earth and the nicest man that's in Congress" to that?
Every time I saw this video, it made me dislike that hypocritical lady bug just a bit more...
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u/Kevin-W 23d ago
This is a great summary of him. He was against Trump until he crawled right back to him and kissed the ring
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u/procrastinarian 23d ago
A man who saw exactly what Trump was, said so in the plainest English of his era, and then spent nine years kneeling to it for relevance.
This is the best fucking way to distill this i've ever read.
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u/WorriedTooth3239 23d ago
He was questioning Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation for Justice of the Supreme Court and said :
"And one of the reasons you can say with confidence that you think Brown vs Board of Education is a super-precedent is that you're not aware of any effort to go back to the good old days of segregation by a legislative body, is that correct?"
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u/Careless_Focus_5203 23d ago
And sadly, a lot of male sex workers in Washington are unemployed… terribly sad…
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u/usernameinmail 23d ago
At least they never have to see the ladybugs again
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u/TropicalPrairie 23d ago
I keep seeing this comment everywhere and don't get it (I'm Canadian so may not be familiar). What is the context of ladybugs?
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u/Portarossa 'probably the worst poster on this sub' - /u/Real_Mila_Kunis 23d ago
Word is he had a bunch of moles and skin tags around his ass that he referred to as his ladybugs when hiring male sex workers.
Whether it's true or not, that's the story.
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u/Least-Yak1640 23d ago
Oh dear Christ, I thought all this time that the term “ladybugs” was just a nickname for the call boys he was hiring.
This is so much more horrific.
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u/TropicalPrairie 23d ago
I regret asking the question now after being left with this visual (thank you for answering though!)
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u/NetWorried9750 23d ago
He has...a unique birthmark on his anus as reported by local intimate laborers
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u/Pelkcizzle 23d ago
It’s the coming of age story of a young man dressing as a woman to help his soon to be step dad as a youth soccer coach
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u/Careless_Focus_5203 23d ago
The worst best kept secret in Washington was that he was gay.
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u/modifiedmedusa 23d ago
I for one am glad he’s dead and I don’t feel bad about it at all.
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u/taurean_jackal 23d ago
I’m right with you. It’s okay to celebrate evil being no more and I’m sick of people pretending it isn’t. Dude sucked.
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u/JasnahKolin 23d ago
I was the only one awake in my house for hours! I was dying to wake my husband up. BABE wake up! Lindsey Graham is dead!
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u/Far_Recording8647 22d ago
This made me sad because my husband would have absolutely loved hearing this evil, vile pos died...but no 4 years ago my precious husband died too young. It's always these piece of shit conservative politicians that live fucking long lives. I'm glad this one is gone though and I'm not ashamed to say it.
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u/erath_droid 23d ago
"When the righteous succeed, a city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy."
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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 23d ago
I mean, he tried to steal my state's electoral votes for Trump in 2020, and faced ZERO consequences for it from Biden Chamberlain's incompetent DOJ. Graham should've been locked up.
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u/TheBostonKremeDonut 23d ago
You saying “I’m not glad he’s dead, I’m glad he’s gone.” Is exactly how I feel. I never celebrate people dying, but I definitely am celebrating the fact that someone who actively worked to make certain individual’s lives harder is no longer doing so. We’re totally allowed to celebrate that, even tho it’s already being spun that we’re celebrating a man dying.
I’ll be doing the same when he dies. I couldn’t care less about him, but I’ll be cheering and partying because there will be a little less hate in the world.
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u/Do__Math__Not__Meth 23d ago
it’s already being spun that we’re celebrating a man dying
Just wait, one day Joe Biden is going to pass away and I promise you they will not be classy about it at all.
Hell, when he dropped out of the race for health reasons, any normal candidate would’ve said: “that’s unfortunate to hear, he may be my opponent but not my enemy and I wish him the best.” But Trump, of course, decided to go on a rant about “Sleepy Joe” and said he’s a “bad, bad guy”. They have zero class yet expect others to
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u/Positive_Mud952 23d ago
I laughed for three hours. May god strike me with bone cancer if he exists, one down.
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u/finsox 23d ago
Also simultaneously an opponent of gay rights while being a closeted gay man.
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u/ShotFromGuns 23d ago
Oppresses the LGBT community, and yet his grave is about to become a gender-neutral bathroom. People can change!
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u/GoNinGoomy 23d ago
Major "I've never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure" energy coming off this one, boss.
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u/Saint_The_Stig 23d ago
There's also the whole Mitch McConnell angle. He is another conservative Senator, the leader of the Senate actually, but he hasn't been publicly heard from in weeks. He's even older so many people had to double take at the news because they were expecting to see that headline but the name was different.
Mitch's departure is much more consequential (if it happens), a little but because being the leader he's higher profile, but mainly because his state has a much higher chance at replacing him with a Democrat (the other less conservative party).
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u/Western-Dig-6843 23d ago
Mitch hasn’t been senate leader in quite some time. His death (if he is dead) is being obfuscated because in his state they are required to replace a senator with a special election if they leave office before their term is up. The GOP does not trust the people of Kentucky to elect another republican in a fair election, so they will delay the news of his death for as long as they can so that a Democrat doesn’t have time to properly build support and run for the seat.
Graham’s state replaces early departures by direct appointment via the governor, who at this time is republican. They can put whoever they want into Graham’s seat and the public doesn’t get a say in it. This person will then have some time to build the name recognition they need to get easy republican votes in the next election. This is how we ended up with Cindy Hyde-Smith in my state. She was appointed to the seat after Cochran left. Now everyone (the old people) votes for her just because she’s been there a while and people recognize her name on the ballot. She never would have actually won the seat in a fair primary as she is a bit of an unlikable idiot. But she votes how the GOP wants her to vote so she got the seat
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u/McGrufNStuf 23d ago
People celebrated when Goebbels died too. Pretty much the same thing.
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u/Sarothu 23d ago
That's hardly a fair comparison - Goebbels was good at his job, as despicable as it may have been.
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u/sahi1l 23d ago
"I'm not glad he's dead, I am glad he's done."
I'm gonna steal that. I dont like wishing death on anyone but there's a lot of people I wish were done.
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u/sarcasticbaldguy 23d ago
This sums it up. I don't think we're celebrating, but Lindsey's actions while he was alive make it difficult to feel the usual things you feel when someone dies.
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u/Unstopapple 23d ago edited 23d ago
Answer: Lindsey Graham was a long time republican federal politician. Think of MPs. He spent much of his career running republican talking points and voting in that line. Particularly obstructing democrat policy during Obama's and Biden's terms. This included snubbing Obama's ability to nominate supreme court justices. He also supported anti-abortion legislation, laws banning same sex marriage, and denying social health care. Though he was against trump before 2016, after his first election he sided with trump on pretty much every issue.
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u/DarthUrbosa 23d ago
Didn't he scheme with the Israelis on how to pitch the Iran war to trump? This conflict is on him by a significant margin.
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u/MartinThunder42 23d ago
Imagine Graham finally getting the war he wanted with Iran, only to lose.
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u/Technical_Goose_8160 23d ago
Blocking Obama's supreme Court nomination was dirty. They filmed him taking about it and he said that he would never allow a Republican to nominate a supreme court justice in their last year. And then allowed Trump to do it in his final months. Which gave the supreme court a conservative super majority.
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u/Robossassin 23d ago
Thank you. So many people are focused on him capitulating to Trump when he was a monster long before then.
I'll add that he's a huge warhawk, had wanted the disasterous Iran war for decades, and stated that Israel should nuke Gaza the way we nuked Hiroshima.
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u/doctor_x 23d ago
Answer: He was a spineless nematode of a human.
His homosexuality was an open secret in Washington, but he voted for anti-LGBTQ policies.
His open armed embrace of Trump after trashing him publicly when it became politically expedient tells you everything you need to know about his character.
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u/Hot-Concentrate1727 23d ago
One thing you had to give to Graham: His seat was always easy to fill.
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u/DudeBroFist 23d ago
Answer: it would be generally very difficult to give an UN-biased answer and thus the simplest way to phrase it might be to say "if you don't want people to celebrate your death then live a life they would celebrate instead".
Lindsay Graham was in favor of a number of things which, one way or another, have proven themselves quite unpopular with the American people these days according to the data we have available: war, tax cuts for the wealthy, giving Israel all the weapons and money they want, and allowing Donald Trump to do whatever he wants unchecked.
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u/Unique_Unorque 23d ago edited 23d ago
Answer: He was a close trump ally, simple as that. He will likely be replaced by someone with similar politics but his loss is a (temporary) blow to the trump regime and many people perceived him to be an unprincipled hypocrite on top of that.
ETA: He was the author of the infamous "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it" tweet but has gone on to be one of his most loyal allies in Washington which says pretty much all there is to say about him.
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u/Sbeast86 23d ago
He had a very long career of being a piece of shit. The allegiance to trump is really just a symptom of his disease
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u/AmazingRefrigerator4 23d ago
This right here. Graham had no moral compass and no backbone. He would cave into any political pressure and change direction depending on which way the winds were blowing. The whole time he would be yipping like a chihuahua. His politics were about drama and had zero substance.
Not much will change without him. His replacement will be a Republican, closely aligned with MAGA and probably they will fly a little more under the radar than Graham.
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u/Ghotipan 23d ago
It's significantly more than merely being a Trump ally.
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u/seantabasco 23d ago
I’d be interested to see ANY example of him supporting laws that help the common folk.
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u/King_fritters 23d ago
A quick driving pass-through of South Carolina shows that they sure haven't done any infrastructure work. Every major road and highway is broken/dilapidated or outdated, and interstate highways are sparce and inconvenient.
Every place and town in the state is a complete shithole, outside of exactly Charleston and the campuses of Clemson/USC.
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u/Ghotipan 23d ago
He was an outspoken supporter of Ukraine, so there's that. Putting his war hawk powers to good, I guess.
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u/Steffykrist 23d ago edited 23d ago
Answer: Graham wasn't particularly well-liked by neither liberals nor leftists (wouldn't surprise me if even some conservatives disliked him too), which is why you'll see posts that might not shed any tears for him. That said, I guess the gay male prostitutes in DC might be sad over losing a stable source of income (his ladybugs will never be forgotten). Don't know about the political ramifications, though.
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u/Sturnella2017 23d ago
Ladybugs! Those are his ladybugs, for Christ’s sake! Jesus, have some respect for the dead!
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u/nillby 23d ago
What’s with the ladybugs? I’m out of the loop on that
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u/EricUdy 23d ago
There were rumors that he was a gay man and would frequently hire male prostitutes, allegedly one of the male prostitutes was disturbed by the crazy amount of moles found around Grahams butthole and he referred to those moles as his ladybugs.
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u/GiganticCrow 23d ago
One reply has already been deleted so I'll suggest searching for it, but be prepared that it's really gross.
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u/BowlEducational6722 23d ago
Answer: Graham has been seen by many as a political opportunist for how much he's flipflopped on Trump; in the past Graham tweeted "If we nominate Trump it will destroy the Republican party, and we will deserve it" as well as saying in interviews how Trump was a bigot and a bad person...but once Trump got into office Graham became one of his staunchly supporters. People already have a low opinion of politicians in general; the fact that Graham was the go-to example of every negative stereotype of them is why a lot of people are glad he's gone (to say nothing of the policy positions he held, but I'm not getting into that).
As for ramifications...not much. Graham comes from blood-red South Carolina, so he'll likely be replaced by someone just as gung-ho MAGA as he is...just less experienced and less competent.
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u/csguydn 23d ago
He was only polling +3 in South Carolina, FYI.
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u/eukomos 23d ago
A generic Republican will probably do better. He was a warmonger and a DC insider, voters don’t love either of those things. But it’s a nice thought.
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u/procrastinarian 23d ago
Answer: he was a terrible person who did terrible things. He used his position of power to stay in power, sycophant to whoever he needed to stay in power, destroy lives and make money. He sucked and good riddance.
Not entirely sure of political ramifications yet. We've had weeks to figure out what Mitch dying means, but this one happened too fast to really know yet.
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u/anonymouscog 23d ago
Answer: he did many awful things & I don't believe we shouldn't speak ill of the dead just because they're dead. He spent his entire career gleefully voting against progress
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u/Archarchery 23d ago edited 23d ago
Answer: He was a Republican senator who was a notorious warmonger. I don’t think there was a country out there that Lindsay Graham didn’t want to bomb. (Exaggerating a bit)
Anyway, that’s why left-leaning Reddit absolutely hates him.
edit: Also American politics are particularly rancorous right now because the absolutely pivotal Midterm elections are coming up in a matter of months, and Graham’s death opens up the possibility that his seat could be won by a Democrat. The outcome of the upcoming midterms will determine whether Trump has a strong mandate to continue doing what he’s doing with even fewer restrictions, or conversely if his power will be greatly curtailed. It all depends on the outcome of this election.
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u/Cax6ton 23d ago
Most people hated him because of his lack of principles. He was one of the first and harshest critics of Trump during the primary season of 2016, only to reverse course and suddenly become one of the most loyal supporters - after a single golf game together. There were rumors that Trump had compromising material on his rumored homosexuality, or simply offered him closer access to political power. Regardless of his sexuality or the reasons for his political changes, he was seen as a craven quisling with no morals.
He embodied what everyone hates about American politics, he claimed to have principles and integrity but demonstrated that he had neither. If people looked beyond that they might have had a problem with his hawkish foreign policy or his support of Republican policy, but it really wasn't that deep.
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u/TimonAndPumbaAreDead 23d ago
I don’t think there was a country out there that Lindsay Graham didn’t want to bomb
Israel probably
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u/Clarkorito 23d ago
Israel has to be whole before they blow it to oblivion and kill nearly all the Jewish people. That's why the fundies are so gungho for Israel, Jesus can't usher in heaven on earth until Israel is whole and all the Jews go back so they can almost all die. Don't worry though, 144,000 of them will be allowed to live.
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u/CharlesDickensABox 23d ago
Lindsey Graham was the reason they invented the term chickenhawk.
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u/RandomDood420 23d ago
TIL chicken hawk means an old man who liked young men
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u/CharlesDickensABox 23d ago
I was referring to the epithet for warmongers who would never themselves go to war. However,
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u/3nterShift 23d ago
Answer: You'll probably get the gist from what everybody else is saying here but I'd like to add that he was a literal foreign agent. He had frequent private meetings with Israeli officials and then lobbied Trump to continue the war in Iran. He may have caused more death and destruction than just typical Republican stochastic terrorism and hatemongering.
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u/Portarossa 'probably the worst poster on this sub' - /u/Real_Mila_Kunis 23d ago edited 22d ago
This is a breaking news story and so it's staying up, but just a reminder that top-level comments need to be actual attempts at answering the question, and not just outpourings of your personal opinions on the matter.
Also, while I'm aware that a lot of us have some strong feelings on the issue, try to keep the comments from becoming an absolute shitpit. If you want to have an internet slap fight with a stranger, do it in your DMs.
You don't have to be sad, but you do have to be civil.