Lindsey Graham Wants Us To Use His Words Against Him
On the topic of supreme court vacancies in election years, Lindsey Graham said in 2016 “I want you to use my words against me.”
That’s a request a lot of folks have decided to satisfy. I’ll hop on that bandwagon.
Graham’s 2016 Promise
Here’s the promise he made in March of 2016.
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say ‘Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,’ and you can use my words against me and you’d be absolutely right.” — Lindsey Graham, March 2016
Graham’s 2018 Promise
Here’s a renewal of the promise he made a couple years later in 2018 on October 3rd:
“If an opening comes in the last year of president Trump’s term and the primary process has started, we’ll wait ‘till the next election” — Lindsey Graham, October 3rd, 2018
Backpedaling
In May of 2020, he suggested he might break his promise. Here was his excuse:
“Well, Merrick Garland was a different situation. You had the president of one party nominating, and you had the Senate in the hands of the other party. A situation where you’ve got them both would be different. I don’t want to speculate, but I think appointing judges is a high priority for me in 2020” — Lindsey Graham, May 2020
This is a bad excuse. When he made his 2016 and promise, he made clear it was in the hypothetical scenario of a Republican president filling a supreme court vacancy with a Republican Senate in 2020. That exact scenario has unfolded and is no longer hypothetical. And the Senate and Presidency were in control of the same party in 2018 when he renewed his promise. This can’t be styled as some sort of new development.
Promise Breaking and Excuse Making
On September 19th, 2020, Lindsey declared he would break his promise and gave two excuses for doing so in a three-tweet thread:
The two biggest changes regarding the Senate and judicial confirmations that have occurred in the last decade have come from Democrats.
* Harry Reid changed the rules to allow a simple majority vote for Circuit Court nominees dealing out the minority.
* Chuck Schumer and his friends in the liberal media conspired to destroy the life of Brett Kavanaugh and hold that Supreme Court seat open.
In light of these two events, I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.
His first excuse is: Harry Reid killed the filibuster for circuit court nominations.
I believe it was a bad move for Reid to do this. But this a bad excuse. Reid made this change in 2013 and is therefore irrelevant to his promises made years later. Whatever legitimate grievances he had on this 2013 change were already factored in to his 2016 and 2018 promises.
His second excuse is: he believes there was a slanderous conspiracy to keep open the vacancy created by Kennedy’s retirement.
This is also a bad excuse. His 2018 promise was made on October 3, 2018. This was about 3 months after Kavanaugh was nominated and just 3 days before he was confirmed. Famously, a week before he made his 2018 promise, Lindsey was absolutely livid with the way Democrats had handled aspects of the hearing and referred to it as “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics”. So this event was about as fresh in his mind as it could possibly be when he made his 2018 promise a week later. It was not some sort of post-promise development. It was the backdrop upon which he made his promise.
Misleading Word Choice and Deflecting Blame
The language Lindsey uses to announce breaking his promise is “In light of these two events…” The word choice “in light of” could mislead some to think that these events were later developments that have since changed the conditions of his promise. They are not. As shown, these events were well-known already-transpired events that predated the renewal of his promise.
Graham deflects attention from himself to the Democrats and “the media” by accusing them of conspiring with his political opponents. As shown, this is irrelevant to his promise but as a side note I am worried that a recent change in the political landscape is a sharp increase in prominent US politicians willing to regularly attack “the media” and also an increase in claiming conspiracy. Adding these irrelevant elements to his excuse seems a lot like the ol’ propaganda tactic of scapegoating where one pointlessly blames some other person or group with hopes that his supporters’ existing stigma towards that entity will bite and be dragged away from the subject at hand and what would otherwise be plainly recognizable: the unprincipled behavior of this public official.
Conclusion
Graham made a promise and told us to hold him to it. Graham broke that promise. Plain and simple.