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Lindsey Graham Wanted His Day Job Back

Rodney Clough
3 min readSep 11, 2024

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Illustration by Ben Hickey. Courtesy atlantic.com

So, he kissed the ring of the tyrant who stole it.

The business of violence enters politics.

September 11

Leading up to the debate, Tuesday in Philadelphia, political pundits and poll watchers paused to reflect upon a series of defections. First, there was Liz Cheney, who publicly disavowed any support for Donald Trump as party Presidential candidate. Cheney did the Donald one better — she encouraged other defectors to vote for Kamala Harris, such was the threat Trump posed for the future of the country. Daughter Liz was followed by Papa Cheney, former Vice President, once banner carrier for conservative Republicans.

Theirs were not the first defections to underscore the decline of wholesale Republican affirmation of candidate Trump for reelection. A steely silence descended over Trump afficionados after Tuesday’s debate, where Trump, baited by a relentless Harris, went off message so many times, former Trump debate coach Chris Christie stopped counting.

The Cheney wakeup call reminds one of a similar set of defections from eight years ago, notably, Lindsey Graham and Trump’s running mate, J. D. Vance, who short of describing Trump as America’s Mussolini, unabashedly defected the other way — deserting country over party and careerism.

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Rodney Clough
Rodney Clough

Written by Rodney Clough

Refuses to nap. Septuagenarian. Cliche’ raker. Writes weekly.

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