The triumph of Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham, the senior US senator from South Carolina, died unexpectedly on Saturday, aged 71. This being Anno Domini 2026, the famously hawkish Republican’s demise was greeted with open joy by his opponents on the antiwar Left and the hard Right. “Good riddance,” posted Ana Kasparian. Nick Fuentes said the exact same thing. Many others shared the same sentiment with slightly more circumspection. Yet responsible progressives and populists seeking a more restrained foreign policy would do well to study the sources of his success: how he was able to advance his expansive foreign-policy vision through the great vicissitudes of the past three decades, even as his own party’s base turned against foreign interventionism. A more restrained foreign policy won’t succeed unless the restrainers m