Men's Lifestyle July 13, 2026 0 Comments

How Trump’s Shocking Spin on Lindsey Graham’s Death Reveals a Dark New Political Playbook You Can’t Ignore

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was a carrier—of a curious and corrosive ailment infecting American conservatism, a prion disease that crept into the Republican Party decades ago and festered with time. You might wonder: how does a political figure transform from outspoken critic to loyal devotee of a force he once warned would destroy the party? Well, much like an insidious illness that slowly erodes the body’s defenses, Graham’s journey offers a stark, if unsettling, metaphor for the state of modern conservatism. From his early days spotlighting scandal to his later years capitulating under the weight of power plays and political expediency, his trajectory forces us to ask—when does allegiance become pathology? Buckle up, this isn’t your typical political obituary—it’s a diagnosis. LEARN MORE.

4 min read

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was a carrier.

Here in the shebeen, we have tracked the progress of the prion disease afflicting American conservatism and, thus, the Republican Party as conservatism’s primary electoral manifestation. The prion disease entered the party on or about 1964, when Republican power shifted south and west from Wall Street and into the wild kingdom in which the remnants of American apartheid had taken root. It was exacerbated in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan, when an entirely new strain emerged from politically weaponized splinter Protestantism. And in 1992, when a Democratic candidate named Bill Clinton was elected, the prion disease had a major outbreak, and Lindsey Graham was one of the index patients. When the Great Penis Hunt of 1998 was launched, Graham was front and center. Back in 1998, he appeared before the Senate as one of the House Managers in the matter of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. In a voice that was thick with performative ruefulness, and halfway between Sheriff Andy Taylor and Atticus Finch, Graham said:

“What’s a high crime? How about if an important person hurt somebody of low means? It’s not very scholarly, but I think it’s a truth. I think that’s what they meant by high crimes. Doesn’t even have to be a crime. It’s just when you start using your office and you’re acting in a way that hurts people, you’ve committed a high crime.”

Yes, he actually said that, back in 1999. Once that sorry episode was over, Graham was omnipresent in our national political life. He mongered war at every opportunity. The prion disease erupted in him in spectacular ways. But never more so than over the past 10 years, when it went from chronic to fully progressive, eating away at the higher functions of the conservative brain because of a particularly virulent strain introduced by the current president of the United States. In Lindsey Graham, a carrier, the prion disease became terminal.

In 2016, of course, during the GOP presidential primaries, there was nobody who was more critical of what appeared to be the farcical Trump campaign than was Lindsey Graham who, famously, said of that campaign when it looked as though it actually might succeed:

“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed. And we will deserve it.”

Periods of lucidity are one of the more heartbreaking symptoms of the prion disease.

What has occurred subsequently in their relationship is currently being soft-pedaled in the elite political press, which has slid with revolting ease into nil nisi bonum mode since Graham joined the choir invisible over the weekend. Even leaving aside the theories that the president leveraged Graham’s personal life into supporting him, all it really would have taken was an appeal to Graham’s insatiable sweet tooth for access to power. Consider, for example, his red-faced tantrum during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, which was surpassed in its hair-on-fire hysteria only by the tantrums tossed by the nominee himself. Sure, it was high-voltage sucking up, but Graham’s sucking-up not to the president, but, rather, to the power represented by the man he once called a “jackass.” The prion disease feeds on power the way HIV feeds on T-cells.

The final triumph of the prion disease over Lindsey Graham came in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. He arose in the Senate, and said, quite memorably:

“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president. All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”

Periods of lucidity are one of the more heartbreaking symptoms of the prion disease.

By May, he was wondering:

“Can we move forward without President Trump? I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”

And there is probably no better epitaph for the career of Lindsey Graham, tragic victim of the prion disease, than the words of the president of the United States. From The Hill:

President Trump said he spoke with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) before his sudden death on Saturday, stating that the South Carolina senator “sounded a little tired.”

“He called and he said, ‘We’re all set for the SAVE America Act.’ He was pushing the SAVE America Act like crazy,” Trump told NBC News’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” referring to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which has become a legislative priority for the president.

This almost assuredly is a barefaced non-fact. Lindsey Graham’s death was used by the president he so slavishly served as a political bludgeon, and by the president who made Lindsey Graham’s death all about himself. He lived as grist and died as grist.