Lindsey Graham’s Finest Moment

By Noah Rothman

Sunday, July 12, 2026

 

The sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham at the age of 71 on Sunday morning prompted many reflections on his long and immensely influential career in public life.

 

Among them, Graham’s impassioned support for Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings:

 

 

Yes, it was a fiery exchange that summoned a lot of theatrics. But Graham channeled a sentiment that both animated and united Republicans at a time when the bitter debates over Donald Trump’s ascension to the top of the GOP’s ranks were still quite raw.

 

It’s easy to forget the strength of the cultural currents against which Graham bravely struggled in this clip. Democrats probably hope that you’ve forgotten. The casual bigotry they promulgated, the sordid and baseless allegations they made, not just against Kavanaugh but anyone who shared his accidents of birth, would become features of the “woke” discourse that was soon to consume the country.

 

At no point, even today, could any of Kavanaugh’s accusers place him in a room with his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, much less establish the claim that he had participated in “gang rape.” Nevertheless, his guilt was assumed. Even Kavanaugh’s efforts to defend himself against what he claimed were false allegations were held up as further evidence of his guilt.

 

I compiled many of the worst examples of this tendency at the time for Commentary.

 

“A lot of white men don’t know what it’s like to feel threatened, powerless, and frustrated,” said Hillary Clinton’s onetime communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, of Kavanaugh’s sometimes emotional attempts to restore his good name.

 

“We reflexively understand the anger of white men, especially when used to convey how unfairly they’ve been treated, as righteous and correct,” the columnist Rebecca Traister agreed.

 

Kavanaugh’s passion in his own defense was the bleat of all “entitled white men acting like the new minority, howling about things that are being taken away from them, aggrieved at anything that diminishes them or saps their power,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd concurred.

 

“Kavanaugh Borrows from Trump’s Playbook on White Male Anger,” read the headline on a Times report — not an opinion article — on Kavanaugh’s ordeal. Times contributor Bryce Covert wondered why Kavanaugh was even defending himself as vehemently as he was. “Not getting what he wants is the same as losing his very life,” she complained of his objections to being branded a rapist.

 

The “Hour of Angry White Male Rage had come ’round at last,’” Esquire’s Charles Pierce affirmed. “It’s about the rage of white men, upper class as well as working class, who perceive a threat to their privileged position,” Paul Krugman averred. Indeed, it was incumbent on Kavanaugh to acknowledge that his gender and skin color oblige him to step “back from the center of the room and begin to give up our seats at the table,” ABC  News analyst Matthew Dowd explained.

 

The left didn’t regard Graham’s display of uncharacteristic outrage as a sign that they had gone too far. Rather, it was evidence of how right they were. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp described Graham’s outburst as a sign that “white men in power are not going anywhere.” Rather, it was a sign that basic decency still has a place in American politics.

 

Lindsey Graham won that fight, as he won so many others throughout his career in public life. The Senate will be an emptier place without him.