Lindsey Graham getting booed at Saturday's Trump rally was both hilarious and deeply alarming

This is what fascist movements look like

Lindsey Graham getting booed, called a “traitor”--and worse--for six minutes while trying to speak at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday is the worst reaction I’ve ever seen from an audience. And I’ve seen more than my fair share as a former full time stand-up comic for nearly two decades. It was a bloodbath! Making it even more painful for Graham was that rally was being held in his home state of South Carolina and just about 15 miles from where he lives.

The booing and jeering began as soon as Graham was introduced to the Trump faithful. At first, Graham appeared amused by the crowd’s boos—even laughing about it.   However, Graham soon began to grasp that a large segment of this Trump crowd was not kidding around. That is when Graham went into grovel mode as he tried to win over the audience with lines like, “Just calm down for a second. I think you’ll like this.” Graham then told the audience, “I was born in this county,” adding, “I live 15 miles down the road. This is a place where people pay the taxes, fight the wars, and tell you what they believe.”

Graham even tried a joke to get the crowd on his side, stating, “I found common ground with President Trump…it took a while to get there, folks.” He then quipped, “I come to like President Trump and he likes himself…and we go that in common.”  (Pro tip: If you are bombing with an audience don’t mock the person the crowd loves!)  After six minutes of boos that effectively drowned Graham out, he slinked off the stage. 

Making matters worse for Graham is that when Trump later took the podium, he needled Graham saying, “everyone makes mistakes,” adding, “Even Lindsey down here, Senator Lindsey Graham.” 

It was on one level fun to watch Graham so horribly bomb but on another level it’s yet another example of the way some Trump’s supporters demand absolute loyalty to Trump—a defining trait found in authoritarian and fascist movements.  So when Trump declared that everyone makes a “mistake,” including Graham, it appears that “mistake” was not being 100 percent loyal to Trump on every issue.

In fact, South Carolina’s Greenville News interviewed several attendees who expressed that very sentiment. One called Graham “wishy-washy” while others noted Graham only supports Trump when it can help him politically. The message of MAGA to all Republicans is to either be totally loyal to Trump or face our wrath.

This demand for unconditional loyalty to Trump again raises red flags since it’s what we see in authoritarian movements. Jason Stanley, a Professor at Yale and author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them” explained in a July 2020 interview that, “Fascism is based on power, loyalty, and fear of the other. The fascist leader is infallible.”  And as Stanley shared, any who dare oppose this leader “is immediately a traitor.”

Stanley accurately noted at the time—well before Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 election: “Many of [Trump’s] his supporters see him as infallible. There's the denial of reality that is characteristic of fascism.”

The professor in that July 2020 interview—as if talking about Saturday’s rally—added instructively: “Remember [Trump’s] comment, ‘I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and I wouldn't lose a single supporter?’ That's a fascist connection of total loyalty,” adding, “His rallies are classic fascist rallies.”

The reason Stanley was right back in July 2020 about what Trump was capable of and how his base would react with blind loyalty was not a lucky guess. Rather it’s because Trump and his MAGA base are what fascist movements have looked like throughout modern history.  

Echoing that sentiment is NYU Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book about authoritarian leadership, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She told Time in November 2020 that, “Strongmen are a subset of authoritarian who require total loyalty, bend democracy around [their] own needs.” Ben-Ghiat sees Trump—just as she does with Putin-as such a “Strongman.”

This is all consistent with Trump at his rally Saturday praising China’s President Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as examples of world leaders who are at “the top of their game.” Trump didn’t praise heads of nations of Western democracies. Instead, he choose to lavish accolades upon autocratic leaders who wield absolute power and unquestioning loyalty from their people. (What a contrast to President Biden who two weeks ago referred to China’s Xi as a “dictator.”)  

Trump is sharing with his followers what he strives for and in turn what he wants his followers to demand. These are again Trump’s fascist instincts on parade for all to see.

Getting back to Graham, there was a time when he was a Trump critic—but that was back during the 2016 GOP primary when he called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” that  “doesn’t represent my party.” Since then, Graham became a stalwart Trump ally—and frequent golfing buddy.

During the 2021 impeachment trial of Trump for allegedly inciting the Jan 6 insurrection, Graham defended Trump saying the “impeachment effort driven by passion and hatred against President Trump.”  And after news broke a Manhattan grand jury had indicted Trump for more than 30 felonies relating to alleged hush money payments, Graham was on Fox News tearfully urging people to donate to Trump: “Go tonight. Give the president some money to fight this bullsh*t!”

But Graham has also been publicly critical of Trump since he left office. For example, in March 2022, Graham said Trump calling Russian Leader Vladimir Putin a “genius” was a “mistake,” noting, “Putin’s not a genius, he’s a war criminal.”

And just last month after Trump was charged with a slew of felonies for allegedly mishandling documents containing our nation’s military secrets, Graham stated on ABC, “I’m not justifying his behavior,“ adding, “If it were up to me, nobody would take classified information in their garage or Mar-a-Lago.”

That demand for unquestioning loyalty to Trump helps us understand why a crowd in the very county Graham was born and only 15 miles from where he lives would so quickly turn on him. Those booing did not care that Graham has represented South Carolina in the House and then the Senate since 1995. All that matters to them is absolute loyalty to their beloved Trump.

That is not what an American political party looks like-rather it’s what a fascist movement demands.

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