Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the other hand, not so much.
Hours before Trump slipped into the big city almost unnoticed, TV viewers heard Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, struggle to explain why he’s so intrigued by the president who encouraged a mob to attack Capitol — where Graham was at work certifying an election — on January 6.
“There’s something about Trump,” Graham, told “Axios on HBO.” “There’s a dark side — and there’s some magic there.”
Trump has paraded his dark side ever since he was a misbehaving boy who was sent to military school by his exasperated parents. In adulthood, his boorish egomania grew until he became a race-baiting caricature, leading the so-called “birther” movement that wrongly questioned whether former President Barack Obama was born in America
Graham used to know this. Appearing on CNN in 2015, he told Alisyn Camerota that Trump was “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” that didn’t represent his party . Nothing that has happened since then has erased the truth Graham spoke. However, Trump did become president, establishing a hold over the party that now finds him in control — even after his defeat in his bid for reelection, and the disgraceful attack on Capitol carried out by his followers.
What Graham seems to find magical is that despite his many failures, which include not just Trump’s defeat at the polls but his failed effort to help the GOP hold onto a Senate majority and his abysmal handling of the pandemic, Trump has a firm grip on millions of GOP voters. Their rabid devotion strikes fear in the wishy-washy hearts of certain politicians who might disagree with Trump, but worry about being challenged by someone loyal to the former president.
The power of political rage is well established. Anger, especially coming from a candidate at a crowded rally, can be electrifying. And the further the candidate goes with his or her display of emotion, the more powerful the effect. Call your opponent dishonest and the crowd may cheer. Call for her to be put in prison and the crowd my start chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Call on people to “fight like hell,” or they “won’t have a country anymore,” and they just might pour into the Senate shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Pence, we must note, is a Republican. Following Biden’s victory, Trump raised Pence, his vice president, up as an enemy because he refused to stop the Congress from certifying the results of the Electoral College, which would affirm that…
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