Trump Endorses Lindsey Graham. Ten Years In the past, He Attacked Him.

In another example of the president’s errant shift in views and policies, he recently endorsed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for reelection. Ten years ago, Trump called Graham “one of the worst representatives of any representative in the United States.”

“Senator Lindsey Graham is doing a fantastic job,” President Donald Trump said Friday on his social media platform Truth Social. He added that Graham’s opponent reminds him of one of the most constitutionally obedient legislators in Congress. “He is running against a LUNATIC named Mark Lynch, who supports perhaps the Worst Congressman in the History of our Country, Thomas Massie, of the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Trump said.

Warmonger

Graham, who has gotten very close to the president in his second term, is the poster child for the warmongering neoconservative. He supports military adventurism with a zeal few can match. Moreover, he’s made comments suggesting a cavalier view toward killing. “We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes,” he said during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit in October. “Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs. We didn’t run out of bombs in World War II.”

Graham is also credited with playing a major role in Trump’s decision to launch the war in Iran. As The Daily Caller noted:

Graham took an active, behind-the-scenes role pushing the U.S. toward military action against Iran by working closely with foreign officials and intelligence sources. He traveled repeatedly to Israel, where he met with members of the country’s intelligence agency and gathered information that he later brought back to Washington.

A New Decade

Ten years ago, Trump had a radically different view of Graham, as did Graham of Trump. The president said this in February 2016 :

I think Lindsey Graham is a disgrace, and … one of the worst representatives of any representative in the United States, and I don’t think he should run. I don’t think he could run for dog catcher in this state and win again. I really don’t. Other than that, I think he’s wonderful.

At the time, Graham was a never-Trumper who was endorsing Jeb Bush. He said Trump would make a “terrible commander in chief” and predicted that the GOP would get “slaughtered” if he were nominated.

Graham went on to win reelection in 2016. Afterward, he managed to compile a voting record for the 114th Congress aligned with constitutional principles only 33 percent of the time.

The South Carolinian has occupied a seat in Congress for three decades, since the mid-1990s. If there is any silver lining, it’s that his lifetime score in JP’s Freedom Index is higher than it was the two years after he was reelected in 2016. Yet it is still a dismal 57 percent.

Republicans tout themselves as the party of limited government and personal liberty, but Graham’s votes say otherwise. They indicate that he’s all on board with deficit spending, warring, and Big Government power. In addition to supporting any bill or measure that fuels wars, he’s voted against restricting green initiative subsidies and reining in the surveillance state.

The Uniparty

Unfortunately, he’s not an anomaly, but more or less the norm. Nearly all Republicans have voted in support of wars, reckless spending, and FISA Section 702, the “security” measure that allows the government to spy on Americans without a warrant.

This is more evidence that a Uniparty controls the government, as opposed to power shifting between two genuinely different political parties. The Democrats also support wars, unchecked spending, and perpetual government growth. In total, for more than half a century both parties have agreed on foreign intervention, deficit spending, and the never-ending increase of government power at the expense of individual liberty.

Bad Judgment

Trump’s endorsement of Graham and digs at Massie are part of a long series of bad recommendations and attacks on the kind of people who would help restore the original vision of limited government the Framers put in motion. In Georgia, Trump backed Clay Fuller over the more Americanist GOP candidate Colton Moore for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former seat. He backed Mike Rogers — another war-loving, surveillance state-supporting neocon — for a Michigan seat in 2024.

Meanwhile, he goes after constitutionally obedient congressmen like Massie, who refuse to go along to get along, whose compass for voting is the U.S. Constitution, not the whims of whoever occupies the White House.

A Chance to Replace Graham

Perhaps South Carolina voters will finally get rid of Graham. The only realistic chance of that happening is in the primary battle. One of Graham’s primary challengers, Paul Dans, recently dropped out to make more room for, Mark Lynch, whom Trump mentioned in his glowing endorsement of Graham. Dans announced his withdrawal from the race on Friday.

Lynch is an ordained deacon at his church. He believes the Establishment has “sold our God-given and constitutional rights away in order to push the globalist agenda of multi-national corporations and banking cartels.” He opposes the murder of the unborn and neocon foreign policy. On his website, his language sounds a lot like that of Trump of yesteryear. “The Neo-Con policy of endless wars and military intervention and regime change in foreign nations is not in America’s best interests,” he says. He “believes in sending our military to war ONLY as a last resort after proper constitutional authority is issued by Congress.”

There’s nothing crazy about any of this. There is no lunacy detected in Lynch’s platform. The voters of South Carolina have an opportunity to oust one of the most toxic lawmakers — and do the entire country a favor in the process.