Update date: Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who opposed LGBTQ+ rights and consistently denied being gay, dies at age 71
lindsay graham He died on Saturday at the age of 71.Honestly, in the eight years I’ve been writing in this medium, I don’t think I’ve ever written more about anyone than I’ve written about him. Except, of course: donald trump.
And I’ll be honest about other things as well.
These columns were never kind or boring, because Graham definitely had a good click. There are many. Every time his name appeared in a headline, readers flooded in, and the comments section was like a penny novel.
I’ve been thinking about why this is for many years, and I think there are three reasons.
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the first is the oldest washington rumors:That Lindsey Graham gay. I don’t know if this is true or not, so I want to be careful here. In old-fashioned terms, he was a “confirmed bachelor” who had never been married or seriously dated a woman in public, but there was enough of a void for people to fill on their own.
I’m not going to pretend to know what was true in Graham’s personal life. However, I would like to express my personal opinion. When my grandfather knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that a rumor about someone was true, he used to subvert the old adage by saying, “Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.”
That’s what I say about Graham. he always deny it, But I always grinned when he did that.
Related: ‘I’ve never seen a vagina’: Lindsey Graham’s sexuality is a joke
In June 2020, “Lady Gtrended on social media after adult film performer Sean Harding claimed that Graham employed male sex workers. And in September 2024, far-right provocateur and lunatic Laura Loomer publicly recommended to Graham He came out of the closet after publicly criticizing Donald Trump’s campaign style.
Related: Trump ally Laura Loomer goes after Lindsey Graham: ‘We all know you’re gay’
The second reason is simpler and requires no guessing at all. Graham has earned a lot of ire from LGBTQ+ people through his bad votes and nasty comments. he It was a reliable “no”. About the protection of our communities and legislation for the best part of 30 years.
And for many people, the depth of their anger at Graham stems from the theory that a man who so consistently votes against us must be figuring something out about himself in public at our expense. I don’t know if that hypothesis was correct. We can say that that is why his name appeared so often in this publication.
The third reason actually defines his legacy and has nothing to do with it. It’s Donald Trump.
Graham spent 2016 warn someone Who would hear that Trump is a fraud who will destroy the Republican Party? And somewhere along the way, he became Trump’s golf buddyhis most trusted defender on cable news, and “trump whisperof the Senate.”
Maybe that was a compliment?
And then January 6, 2021 came. Then one night, Graham found something like the one he had grown. ”All I can say is exclude me” he said from the Senate chamber while the Capitol was still being cleaned. “That’s enough.”
Many of us watched that and thought that finally this might be the moment for him to stop giving in to Trump. Two days later, a crowd of Trump supporters cornered him at Reagan National Airport, shouting,traitorWhen the security guard kicked him out, his face said:
Related: Lindsey Graham, Republican, drives cartoonish clown car off cliff
That afternoon, Bejies scared Lindsay. He melted like butter and realized that breaking with Trump, even for the right reasons, would cost him more than remaining loyal to him.
So, as she was supposed to, Lindsey got back on her knees. As soon as Trump began groping his way back to power, Graham became one of the first Republicans to return to power, along with the then lumbering Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy.
And in the last two years, he More than ever, He became Trump’s most vocal cheerleader when it came to the Iran war in particular, at one point urging South Carolinians to “get ready to deploy.”sons and daughtersHe never hesitated to step into a Middle East conflict, even as members of his own party backed away, and even as the war became more expensive and confusing by the month.
He didn’t hedge. He did not retreat quietly, as politicians usually do when a war becomes unpopular. He dug into it, just as he dug into President Trump and his own sexuality. Such distorted and delusional thinking makes a person a very lonely person.
And it was too bad, by licking the boots, he said Trump Should be Pope.
I think this is the real story of Lindsey Graham. This is a man who seemed to need above all else to hold his seat and stay close to power, and who was willing to abandon any principles that stood in the way of either.
And perhaps they have also given up any personal reasons that might stand in the way.
I have written scathing columns such as the following after the deaths of people who have caused real harm to the LGBTQ community. rush limbaugh, Pat RobertsonAnita Bryant, James Dobson, and I didn’t cut corners just because they died.
Related: For Anita Bryant, there’s no orange juice in hell
Graham deserves similar treatment. For his record against us was no less pernicious.
But instead of confronting his own sexuality — even if there were questions to confront — he dumped it on the rest of us. There’s no sympathy for that at all, and I wonder why we don’t have to say nice things about him just because he’s dead.
By all accounts he was personally lonely, and his politics were similarly isolated. He velcroed himself to Donald Trump, peeling it off when politically necessary, only to quickly stick to him, even at the cost of making himself look small and sycophantic.
Lindsey Graham died a lonely death. No matter what else is written about him this week, I don’t think that part is up for debate.
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