Death of a person is nothing to celebrate, no matter how evil we perceive that person to be. In fact, I am not sure whether anybody can be willingly evil. I believe that to be an illness, like cancer or depression. But that is an entirely different topic for a different time. This post is meant to be about the sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham.
Despite what I have said about his actions over the past decade, I felt a genuine sadness when I first heard the news. Of course, that was a different type of sadness than one feels when they lose a loved one. We often feel sad for ourselves in those situations, for our loss, and the perpetual inability to see and communicate with our loved one. Depending on whether one believes in the afterlife, one may even feel happy for the lost one for having transferred to a better place.
But my feeling of sadness was for the late senator himself. I don’t think there are many people out there who believe that Graham was genuinely on board with what Trump has done to this country. His many statements about Trump before the presidential elections of 2016 (such as if we nominate Trump as the GOP candidate it will be the end of the party, and we will deserve it), and even on January 6, 2021, on the floor of Congress that “count me out,” are clear indications that he knew what was happening. Yet he chose to go along with it, contradicting his own earlier statements.
His famous friendship with the late Senator McCain, one of the most decent politicians this country has witnessed, and the many fond memories that many lawmakers have of Graham before Trump, about his stance on the United States’ humanitarian missions, or its support of the oppressed nations, are also indications of his fundamental differences with Trump.
I think what the late Senator had in mind was that he would return to his previous self once Trump left office, and that he would be able to restore his name and respect, counting on the short memory of his constituents and the American public in general. If this assumption is true, then the fact that he didn’t get to complete the plan is rather sad. But it is also a wake up call, for any politician out there who is following a similar plan, that they may not get the chance to complete it.
In the end, people are judged not by what they were planning to do in the future, but by what they have done in the past, and often more so by what they have done in the recent past.