On abortion, Lindsey Graham is reminded that loyalty with Trump goes one way | Opinion

Buried deep beneath layers of Trump apologia and the taste of shoe leather, there’s a flickering of a soul within Lindsey Graham. I thought it had been snuffed out when Graham stopped telling the truth about Donald Trump and became one of Trump’s most high-profile sycophants.

Apparently, Trump was surprised that flickering still exists, which is why he repeatedly attacked the senior U.S. Senator from South Carolina for daring to not fall in line behind the GOP’s standard bearer. Trump proudly rolled out yet another position on abortion, this time walking away from a 16-week national ban his campaign had floated and instead embracing the idea that abortion should be decided at the state level. It’s not a principled position — just one Trump believes will make it easier to win reelection.

Trump would not have been taking a principled stance on a potential 16-week-abortion ban, with exceptions, had he stuck with it. How do we know? Just listen:

“Know what I like about 16?” Trump said in private to a select group of people. “It’s even. It’s four months.”

Graham, who has proposed banning abortion nationally after 15- and 20 weeks, did not appreciate Trump’s latest leave it to the states position. And he said so.

“I think we should draw a line,” Graham said Monday. “We know that the Dobbs decision did not say that there’s no federal role. There are three laws on the books at the federal level. So, the idea that Dobbs prevents the federal government from acting, I think, is an error. The idea of the Republican Party abandoning the opposition to late-term abortion, I think, would be a mistake, because most Americans oppose late-term abortion.”

Graham continued: “For the pro-life movement, it’s about the child, not geography. So if you’re turning the pro-life movement into a geographical movement, I think you’re making a mistake.” He added: “A child at 15 weeks sucks his thumb, feels pain in California and New York as much as South Carolina.”

Trump responded forcefully and repeatedly to Graham. He said Graham was “doing a great disservice to the Republican Party, and our country” and that “Democrats are thrilled with Lindsey, because they want this issue to simmer for as long a period of time as possible.”

“I blame myself for Lindsey Graham, because the only reason he won in the Great State of South Carolina is because I Endorsed him!” Trump thundered in a post on Truth Social.

It mattered not that Graham has done more than maybe any other top Republican this side of Mike Pence to debase himself to please Trump again and again. It mattered not that Graham has defended Trump more strongly and passionately than anyone. Trump demands loyalty to Trump and Trump alone, and that means repeatedly telling the emperor he has on clothes, and that they’re lovely.

Graham’s criticism of Trump’s abortion announcement was mild compared to the way Graham accurately described Trump during the 2016 GOP presidential primary process. “He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,” Graham said in December 2015.

By 2018, Graham was claiming “He’s not, in my view, a racist by any stretch of the imagination. I have never heard (Trump) make a single racist statement.”

No wonder Trump was surprised Graham spoke out against his latest abortion statement. He, like most of us tracking Graham’s trajectory into lickspittle-dom, thought Graham was totally under Trump’s thumb.

On abortion, though, Graham has taken a principled stand. He plans to keep pushing for a national ban despite Trump’s announcement. I disagree with Graham about a national ban, and most things these days. But I can admit he not only surprised Trump, he surprised me, too.

I thought Graham had abandoned all of his principles for the prize of becoming Trump’s toady. Seems he kept one tucked away for a moment like this.

Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer in North and South Carolina.