Graham Duplicity an Example of How the GOP has Become a Political Cult

 Valerie Biden Owens: "Graham is an Unrecognizable 'Sycophant in Chief"

Here's Lindsey Graham in 2015 quoted in the Huffington Post: 

"The bottom line is if you don't admire Joe Biden as a person, you have a problem.  You need to do some self-evaluation.  He is as good a man as God ever created."  

And in the same year, in an interview with CNN:  

"He [Donald Trump] doesn't represent my party, he doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for."  

But of course, Graham is capable of remarkable duplicity when he thinks he needs to score political points. Valerie Biden Owens points to these Graham quotes in her new book Growing Up Biden" and says, "This is inconcievable to me."  

It is to me, too.  

I'm particularly disappointed in Graham because we share a common background of having been raised and involved in the membership of a Southern Baptist church.  As the Republican party evolved, adopting first the values of Rush Limbaugh, which completely undermined the kind of negotiation and dialogue required for government to work, then those of former President 45, who had no use for democracy and desired to simply ignore any disagreement and do as he pleased, using congress for token support.  Apparently, Graham's relationships are now conditioned upon agreement with the political position he is backing, and even that isn't based on his own beliefs and conviction, but on his loyalty to the former President, not to his constituents or his country.  

How do you go from "He's as good a man as God ever created" about President Biden, and "He doesn't represent my party," and more pointedly, "He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for," to what he says and does now, without explanation and almost overnight?  How do your values change that quickly?  Either it's an act, because he thinks that's what he has to do and say to stay in office, or someone has something on him that he doesn't want known, or money is involved.  And it could be a combination of all three.  

Republicans are Suffering From "Limbaughism" and "Trumpism"

There are plenty of Democrats who are influenced the same way.  Personal benefit, campaign contributions that help keep them in office, lack of a patriotic vision or simply caring more about the office than the people it is supposed to represent are all temptations that everyone in government is subject to and being a Democrat isn't a guarantee of integrity or honesty or remaining true to conviction.  I was disappointed in President Clinton, for putting personal interests ahead of the responsibility he had as President.  But he wasn't working to undermine the constitution and subvert democratic rule.  

The Republicans have embraced ideology that undermines the constitution.  There's very little "working across the aisle," and the Republicans who still, on occasion, determine to vote their conscience rather than voting total loyalty to a person, are turned into pariahs and punished by their party's congressional leadership.   They are offering no solutions to resolving the issues they claim are problems, but stand in the way of those who are actually trying to do something, then blame them because nothing happens.  

Graham sometimes has moments where he's his old self, and will say or do something that resembles independent thinking, but it doesn't last long.  He's no Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney, by any stretch of the imagination, nor even a Susan Collins.  These individuals only stand out because the rest of their party is so lacking in integrity, but with the exception of Kinzinger and Cheney, bi-partisan cooperation and party integrity is not nearly as visible in the others as it once was.  

"Growing Up Biden" Is A Narrative in Genuine Family Values

Valerie Biden Owen's book came out at a good time.  We're so polarized now that there are people who won't pick up the book because of who wrote it, but there will be a lot of others whose favorable opinion of President Biden will be restored by what she writes.  Joe Biden is a genuine person, the real deal, he doesn't hide behind a facade or try to create some public image of himself that doesn't exist in reality.  You get what you see. I imagine he's been hurt by the loss of what he considered real friendships from his time in the Senate.  He hasn't changed, he's the same Joe Biden, but they've changed and it's become painfully obvious that their values do not match his values.  

And that includes Lindsey Graham.