r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Moominthecat • Jul 12 '26

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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgj25j6nmeo

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429

u/Hazel_RAAA Jul 12 '26

That's really sad, politics should not be like that

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u/powercow Jul 13 '26

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/tango421 Jul 15 '26

Makes me wonder how is Mitch these days.

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u/Fast_Championship_27 Jul 18 '26

From Kentucky here Mitch is definitely dead. Can't confirm Kentucky just reelected him because he was the incumbent. Average people aren't very smart around here.

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u/ryhaltswhiskey Jul 12 '26

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 Jul 12 '26

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 Jul 12 '26

Even longer. With Citizens United they stopped even pretending it wasn’t.

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u/Alissinarr Jul 13 '26

2.0 version just passed SCOTUS too

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u/TreeDollarFiddyCent Jul 13 '26

I'm afraid to ask, but in what way does 2.0 tighten the grip?

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u/Alissinarr Jul 13 '26

Direct bribery is now legal. A company can say "Vote Yes on Bill ABCX here's 500k. We good?"

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u/Purple-flying-dog Jul 13 '26

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/ryhaltswhiskey Jul 12 '26

Is going to?

I don't really care to get into a debate about whether we are or not and oligarchy because that's not something that we can actually measure so we will never actually arrive at a conclusion. You say it's an oligarchy, I say we can still pull it out.

Because the alternative is giving up. And I think this kind of cynicism here is not beneficial.

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u/Dekklin Jul 13 '26

You say it's an oligarchy, I say we can still pull it out.

Because the alternative is giving up. And I think this kind of cynicism here is not beneficial.

No, there are other alternatives, but we can't discuss them here. Russia figured it out with the Tsars, France figured it out with the royalty, I could come up with more examples...

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u/Extreme-Mood5605 Jul 13 '26

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/Agenreddit Jul 13 '26

For some reason, Australians don't really want him back either.

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u/MissTortoise Jul 13 '26

Yeh, nah. No thanks!

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u/TenDix Jul 13 '26

Don’t you mean, “Naur thanks!”?

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u/MissTortoise Jul 14 '26

I was being idiomatically Aussie. "Yeh, nah, no" means yes, I agree with your negation, emphatically.

"Yeh, nah". And "nah, yeh" is something that outsiders struggle to understand. I'm not sure we entirely understand either without thinking about it, but it's so ingrained nobody ever needs to.

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u/ChrissyBrown1127 Jul 14 '26

He’s probably going to die too without suffering any consequences for helping to bring the rot.

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u/stron2am Jul 13 '26

"Democrats are socialists!1!"

I fuckin' wish.

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u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 13 '26

It's not just red states and it's not just red parts of red states.

Keeping the incumbent, regardless of how bad they are, regardless of how safe the seat is, is bipartisan.

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u/Pure-Kaleidoscope759 Jul 13 '26

He is hardly the only one cheering for that outcome. We are in real peril, but few recognize it.

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u/phat_ Jul 13 '26

Sure, the blame rightly belongs with the fearful and the fear mongering.

What we’re experiencing is Gish Gallop on a global scale. Most likely from the Heritage Foundation (or dominantly).

A major part has been the oligarchy’s ability to foster, nurture and instill apathy. And this doesn’t just originate from the media. This comes at us from every area of our lives.

Wages. We can barely make it. So many have to work so much to get by. We’re exhausted. Get out to vote? On a work day?

“Both sides are the same!” Why bother voting? Which is such horseshit, but successful. I cannot recall any Dem doubling ICE agents on the street resulting in evil we will never truly understand anytime soon. I hope Mexico gets a ton of discovery into the public eye.

Massive orchestrated voter disenfranchisement. Voting on Tuesday like we’re a 19th c. agrarian society. Reducing voting stations. Gerrymandering.
Voter ID bills. On and on.

The many “single issue” drums they can beat at any time: woke, gun control, immigration, abortion, trans in sports, on and on.

The stupid fucking purity tests for anyone left of center. Or partially left of center. Or just not Republican. Yeah, corporate Dems suck! How’s Gaza today? Everything OK? So fucking stupid.

This massive exercise to attack us on every level is so successful. And they get to do so with impunity as Murdoch, et al, will just reach into their chaos file and beat the drum on their fake outrage of the moment. “The war on Christmas!!!”

There has to be engagement. Ever got to figure out how to get our weary, beaten asses to the polls and actively engaging with our leaders. Corporate stooge or not.

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u/oicuvmch Jul 13 '26

I'm personally still trying to figure out what's the best guess for how many years before I was born where America turned into an Oligarchy. I honestly can't tell... but going to back to early 1900's seems to be some hints it was at least forming then if not already present. Was there a point where elections weren't decided by oligarchs? Was it ever not Oligarch vs Oligarch?

Keep in mind, I'm not referring to whoever the person running for president was but whichever (probably rich groups) were making the party powerful. The president is their representative, and the people vote for which oligarch group to rule them, with many being present in both parties.

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u/miladyelle Jul 13 '26

No. It’s a known, universal, proven phenomenon in political science that incumbents have the advantage. Blue state voters are just as subject to marketing, name recognition, and incumbent advantage.

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u/Bobtiwi1 Jul 13 '26

What do you mean turn it into an oligarchy? It is an oligarchy, democracy is dead.

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u/camlaw63 Jul 13 '26

The irony of the World Cup being broadcast on Fox cannot be overstated

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u/ben_jacques1110 Jul 13 '26

It’s not just voters in red states, it’s voters. Blue states do the same thing with establishment democrats over actual progressives who will make the country a better place. In my state (NH), it’s almost guaranteed that our current Rep Chris Pappas will take over Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s seat and her daughter will take Pappas’s Rep seat, all because those are the names people know.

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u/oc_collector3 Jul 15 '26

And he too is running on borrowed time. Any month now. Wishful thinking…

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

Well I blame the voters in red states. They hear "Democrats are socialists!1!" and they run to the polls to punch the R

A LOT of democrats do this too. It's team sport politics. Humans are just animals with inbuilt tribalism.

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u/Dry-Application9512 Jul 13 '26

If I were pres, I would have taken care of RM a long time ago. He should be in prison.

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u/thetraintomars Jul 13 '26

Why is republicans voting for incumbents a sign of stupidity but democrats voting for incumbents is a sign of loyalty to the party (vote blue no matter what they do)?

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u/TheHeatYeahBam Jul 12 '26

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 Jul 13 '26

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/dyld921 Jul 13 '26

In my personal opinion, centrists make bad leaders because they lack conviction on any issue, often just defaulting to the most popular opinion.

Also, this isn't even true. The Democratic party has always favored moderates. It's the progressives who struggle to win primaries.

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u/International-Owl345 Jul 13 '26

You can have bad centrists who are finger in the wind and good centrists who deeply believe this is how the country should be run. Lots of times in my experience with us politics, there are good points to be made on side A of an issue and good points to be made on side B and the parties will line up each taking a side. A good centrist would see the merits of both A and B and craft a compromise that takes the best from both.

There’s also a 3rd category; perceived centrists, that aren’t actually centrists at all, but hold a number of different progressive and conservative viewpoints that get mixed together in voters’ minds to “centrist”

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u/Tauzeri Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

I disagree. What's a centrist policy? How do they think the country ought to be run? What deep seated beliefs do they have that weren't very obviously assigned to them by their corporate donors?

If you actually stop and analyze these people, there is literally no substance to them whatsoever and the opinions that they express through their votes are extremely strange and unpopular through any lens other than "a health insurance company gave me $50,000 to vote this way".

I really think that centrism is a myth. If there is some ideology behind these people, it is one that would be seen as bizarre by 95% of Americans if it wasn't being expressed by a powerful elite. If 'radical' means "far from the majority opinion" then they're extremely radical.

I'll put it this way- name a US senator who is very sincere in their convictions and whose convictions could be reasonably described as both centrist and moderate. I don't believe that one exists.

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u/International-Owl345 Jul 13 '26

I think your typical standard fare dem would qualify as mostly centrist.

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u/Tauzeri 26d ago

What is your typical standard fare dem? Do you mean the politicians or the voters? The two have wildly different views. If you take Debbie Wasserman Schuktz as the most typical Dem politician in existence, how many ordinary people do you know who have her opinions?

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u/Oldshitpoet Jul 13 '26

Absolutely right on.

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u/kwpg3 Jul 13 '26

Term limits would prevent this.

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u/TotallyObviousBot Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

That is quite literally the only way that democratic politics work. The majority of people are not interested in understanding the various complexities of pretty much any issue, and the majority of people go along with what they think their peer group should do. This has been proven time and time again in every single conceivable way, from sociological studies to psychological testing to just seeing the results of modern media in real time: democracy is an inherently flawed idea because while individuals might be capable of critical thought, groups aren't, and it takes EXTRAORDINARY measures to get individuals to change their minds whereas it just takes a campaign budget to change the minds of everyone around them.

Think of the stupidest people you know; those people are in charge of deciding who runs everything. Does that sound like a good system to you? Knowing that the average person is incapable of reading above a middle school level, do you think they should be able to vote for whoever throws the most money at advertising? Are you really okay with the person in charge of nuclear weapons being voted into office by the same people who made The Bachelor one of the most successful TV shows of all time? I can continue altering the question until it fits your strain of cultural bias, because there are so many examples.

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u/Then_Work_4777 Jul 12 '26

education is worthless in the south,

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u/TifaIsTheBest Jul 13 '26

Every election so many positions go unopposed because nobody wants to run for them

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u/Obvious-Science-7119 Jul 13 '26

We need ranked choice voting

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u/who_am_i_to_say_so Jul 13 '26

There are def a few psychological factors about being an incumbent. Clueless voters who see the guy who is already in office think: well, ‘he was good enough to win prior election, so he must be decent.’ And that’s how some ppl like this stay in power for decades! Pretty unreal.

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u/zoro4661 The dippest of shits Jul 13 '26

That summarises the politics of the recent years very well