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Folks, as often happens, I stayed up half the night, so I got the early news of Lindsay Graham’s passing.
It’s funny because just 48 hours prior, I had argued at length with “Claude”, trying to get this politically correct robot to acknowledge that it is possible that Graham wants to bomb everyone because he plays tough guy before his backwoods primary voters, so as to deflect suspicions from the absence of any known woman in his life, ever, in his entire life.
I wanted Claude to acknowledge that this is, in fact, at least plausible.
But, Claude wasn’t having it.
Claude gave me a bunch of copy-pasted crap, such as, Graham wants to bomb everyone because he represents a state with a particularly high concentration of military bases, military contractors, and veterans.
I said, bullshit, that’s not factually true. It’s what passes for an explanation, out in the infosphere… but it’s false.
So, Claude counted up every military facility in South Carolina, and threw it at me—I think the number was 10.
And I responded that, besides Fort Jackson, all of these other places are Air National Guard airfields, or National Guard armories, or perhaps even Coast Guard stations.
That is, the same as in every state.
Finally, Claude admitted to me that it (Claude) simply repeats what others have published, with no fact-checking of its own.
(And then it struck me that these chatbots are, in fact, ACCURATELY REPRODUCING HUMAN COGNITION, hahahahah!!! Sort of a damaged/mutant child of T.S. Eliot’s “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”)
Well, folks, about 48 hours later, the Witch was dead.
And I thought to publish the following headline: “Ding, dong, the Witch is dead.”
And then I realized, no, that’s almost worthy of Bi-MerCurious.
Fact is, this makes no difference to U.S. foreign policy.
Not just “little difference.”
Precisely ZERO difference.
As I have said and/or written many times, in the game of Republican “pro wrestling”, Graham played “point man” for the war interest.
You know, the guy who openly wishes that someone would assassinate Putin. The guy who goes on Fox and says, with a straight face, that the Marines will take Kharg Island, same as they took Iwo Jima. And when that, predictably, does not happen, he goes back on Fox and spews some other nonsense.
Sure, the Democrats are just as much a part of the War Machine, but they’re a little more NUANCED.
For Republican voters—at least, Fox viewers—you need to keep it dumb, and aggressively dumb, and stupidly aggressive, 24/7/365.
AND, it helps if that same clown flies to Kiev up to several times per year, and while there, is photographed holding an aerial drone, that sort of thing. You know, to demonstrate loyalty to the military industries.
And Graham did this and that and more.
He did the job, VERY well.
Especially after the death of McCain.
When McCain checked out, it was 100% Graham.
FWIW, Claude did grasp that Graham took over from McCain, but was not nuanced enough to understand that it is a role (and in Graham’s case, a very convenient one)…
That is, not necessarily anything inherent to the personality, or because Graham was too lame to be President and so this is how he stays relevant (…which is a role play, right?)
Of course, in American politics, relative to pro wrestling, it’s harder to separate the man from the gimmick.
(And in the Age of Caligula… Well, Caligula has been a gimmick his entire life.)
But if literally nobody (other than paywalled Dreizin) has ever explained the pro wrestling aspect of American politics and in particular the Republican Senate club…..
Then, of course, Claude doesn’t know anything about it.
Anyway, this particular gimmick has ended, but the RACKET continues.
Sure, they need to find someone else to take point.
And it might (or might not) take a while.
But, don’t you doubt, someone will step up.
The American Empire is bigger than one senator, folks.
It is even much bigger than Caligula.
And if you didn’t believe me on that count in December 2024, well, of course, now you do.
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As for U.S. domestic politics…..
There will probably be some impact, as Graham was understood to be the #1 interlocutor between the Republican Senate club and Caligula.
Indeed, Graham was the only one who was genuinely slick enough AND with a strong enough stomach AND from a “red” enough (that is, he was politically secure) state…..
…..to serve as the Senate’s “Caligula whisperer.”
Not that Caligula doesn’t speak to, say, Majority Leader Thune, but he was much more likely to play golf—or otherwise have a nice, friendly chat—with Graham.
And so, Graham’s death will likely serve to accelerate the Republican Senate club’s slide away from Caligula, which was already well under way.
(I won’t give you the details here, but, for an example, you should read my very long comment to the prior feed, if you have not already.)
And so, yes, sure, Graham’s death is likely to impact the USA.
Only not in the manner that the WarTards and War Autists (and the Israelis, panicking all of a sudden!) might assume.
(As for the Israelis specifically, yes, they are taking this to heart. I did a media scan, and in Israel, Graham’s death is big news. Even my Israeli cousin just now asked me about it. Well, folks, all I can say is, these people don’t understand the USA, and they don’t understand Caligula. Do they really think that Caligula wants to do “A” (like, surrender to Iran)… but will change his mind if this one lunatic (and no one else) whispers “B” in his ear… When even Robert Barnes has woken up from that nonsense? Well, I guess they do!)
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Interesting. I just talked to Gemini about it. My hunch, before reading what you wrote here, was that HomoGraham’s meeting with Bandera will at most just delay a bit the US foreign policy trajectory.
Gemini agreed with me (as always, lol), and added that Graham was more like a lubricant, and was very good at passing bills and coordinating Republicans to vote as he wanted. It also added that with him gone, it will not be necessarily easy to find a replacement, but it will be done eventually. And…Caligula said that he wanted to end the war in YooKraine, but HomoGraham wanted to continue. Well, Caligula is a bulshitter, so who cares. But I hope at least the apocalyptic sanctions he was preparing with Zelensky will be delayed a few weeks (at best).
Gemini is Claude’s poor cokehead cousin who lives under a bridge. But, that whole family is trash.
In any case, Graham’s use to Caligula was not in passing legislation; that is silly. That was not Graham’s role even formally.
Graham’s use was in being an informal communicator of the sense or consensus of the Senate Republicans, in which role he was particularly effective in that he was very slick and had no shame about kissing Caligula’s ass, presumably even if/when passing along bad news.
They are good at teaching math and foreign languages, though. And try to talk to DeepSeek about Chinese politics. Challenge: make it say something spicy before censoring itself. About those killer sanctions…what impact will they have?