Republicans have forgotten about swing voters
What Lindsey Graham's impeachment defiance reveals about the GOP's election strategy
Lalalalala, Lindsey Graham can't hear you!
After complaining that congressional Democrats were not adequately transparent in the early stages of their impeachment inquiry against President Trump, the South Carolina Republican has announced his refusal to even read now-available transcripts from that very inquiry. "I've written the whole process off," Graham told CBS Tuesday. "I think this is a bunch of B.S." He reiterated the position Wednesday on Fox and in conversation with a reporter expressing astonishment that "former impeachment manager Lindsey Graham says he's not going to read the impeachment transcripts. Really?" Really, indeed.
This is a curious strategy — and yet we can only assume it is an acceptable strategy to GOP leadership. Graham is a senior senator and chair of the Senate Judiciary committee. He's a presidential favorite and golfing buddy. His cavalier attitude here is almost certainly not an intraparty rebellion — which means it may well be a portend of election strategies to come.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Graham's outright refusal to read the impeachment transcripts strikes me as odd for how it narrows his options going forward. Of course, I don't expect Graham would privately give serious consideration to a proposal to remove a Republican president from office. A plausible scenario in which a GOP-controlled Senate would do anything but acquit Trump in an impeachment trial is near impossible to imagine.
Yet what politicians say in public and private are rarely the same, and the political benefits of at least playing along with the impeachment inquiry seem manifest. Suppose Graham had said something more like this: "I think this is a bunch of B.S., honestly, and if I'm right, my Democratic colleagues should be ashamed of themselves for wasting the American people's time with partisan, backstabbing nonsense. But unlike the Democrats, I'm willing to give those on the other side of the aisle a fair hearing. I'll carefully review these transcripts, and I'll do my due diligence if this comes to a trial in the Senate. Any president should be held accountable for corruption — and any congressional caucus should be held accountable for biased, dishonest investigations like I expect this will be proven to be."
A statement like that has a lot of wiggle room. It casts Graham as a fair, impartial public servant willing, if necessary, to sacrifice partisan advantage on the altar of healthy democracy. In the improbable event that Trump is convicted in the Senate, it lets him insist he was on the right side all along. And in the event of acquittal or a failure to move to a Senate trial in the first place, it lets Graham get in plenty of anti-Democrat slams and demonstrations of loyalty to the president.
But that's not what Graham said. He pre-emptively refused to engage in the process in good faith, declaring it a "sham" he wouldn't "legitimize." He closed the door to, "We know Trump's innocent because we checked," and ran hard at, "We don't have to check because we know he's innocent."
There's certainly an audience for this tack, which will appeal to Trump loyalists and much of the broader Republican base. Negative partisanship is strong right now. Study results published earlier this year found four in 10 Republicans and Democrats alike believe those in the other party are "downright evil;" nearly one in five think they "lack the traits to be considered fully human;" and about the same proportion will say we'd "be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party in the public today just died." For those people and some less vehement partisans, Graham's brazen refusal to examine Democrat-elicited testimony against Trump will be received as a good and necessary stand for justice.
But what about everyone else? What about the independents and swing voters Republicans will likely require, perhaps including in reliably red states like Kentucky, to win in 2020? Independents are nearly evenly split on whether Trump should be impeached, which suggests they are less likely to be amenable to a hardline stance like Graham's that refuses to take the matter seriously. Where a deep-red Republican who opposes impeachment would object to even beginning this inquiry, an independent who opposes it could support completing the initial investigation so Trump's name is duly cleared.
Graham is walling himself off from that crowd, which may not make much difference for his personal re-election prospects but could prove detrimental to other Republicans if they follow his lead. He's betting either that he doesn't need their votes (again, I'm dying to see internal GOP polls in competitive states) or that they don't care enough about impeachment for his position to make a difference. Either is a big wager, and in refusing to read the transcripts, Graham has gone all-in.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
'The House under GOP rule has become a hostile workplace'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
The Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal is about more than bad bets
In The Spotlight The firestorm surrounding one of baseball's biggest stars threatens to upend a generational legacy and professional sports at large
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Feds raid Diddy homes in alleged sex trafficking case
Speed Read Homeland Security raided the properties of hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Xi-Biden meeting: what's in it for both leaders?
Today's Big Question Two superpowers seek to stabilise relations amid global turmoil but core issues of security, trade and Taiwan remain
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Will North Korea take advantage of Israel-Hamas conflict?
Today's Big Question Pyongyang's ties with Russia are 'growing and dangerous' amid reports it sent weapons to Gaza
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published