In an analysis looking back on the life of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), professor of political science Tom Schaller didn’t hold back his condemnation of the South Carolina Republican, whom he argued spearheaded the “gutting of American conservatism” to make way for President Donald Trump’s rise to power.
“Lindsey Graham died a coward. His three-decade career in national politics should be remembered for more than his shameless, pusillanimous capitulations – but not, unfortunately, for some noble pursuit or purpose he used his chameleon-like political skills to secure,” Schaller wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack.
“He should instead be remembered for using his power to bow and scrape, to change his political colors, largely if not solely in service to himself.”
Schaller argued that throughout Graham’s decades-long career in Congress, he often changed “his political spots to fit what he believed,” perhaps most notably with his drastic shift from fierce Trump critic to Trump loyalist. Graham went from calling Trump “unfit for office” to comparing the president to God as recently as last month.
“Conservative figures like the deathly-ill Mitch McConnell or Chief Justice John Roberts have been described as destroyers and ‘gravediggers’ of American democracy. But at least they have wielded their shovels to bury America’s constitutional traditions and safeguards in pursuit of their own pinched and petty political philosophies,” Schaller wrote.
“Lindsey Graham, American chameleon, did nothing of the sort. He cowered and capitulated for three decades in Congress merely to be at the center of power. From 1994 revolutionary to 2026 poltroon, he embodies the movement-to-business-to-racket transformation of modern conservatism. He lived for nothing and died the same way. May he rest in pusillanimity.”