This is an opinion from the Center.
Lindsey Graham’s startling death over the weekend is a tragedy. But as Donald Trump’s presidency heads toward its finish line, it is also a reminder of the upcoming battle for the future of the Republican party.
We talked last week about the internal divisions among Democrats, between the party’s emerging DSA-adjacent progressives and its embattled establishment. But the fight between Trump’s strongest supporters, who want to continue on an intensely MAGA-ified course, and more mainstream Republicans, whose preference will be to return to a more traditional brand of conservatism, may be even nastier and even more definitional.
Think of this face-off as one that will pit pro-Trump and pre-Trump Republicans against each other. The party that shaped American politics for sixty-plus years, from Eisenhower and Nixon through Reagan and Bush, still exists. But it has gone into hiding, and the question is whether the survivors of the GOP that preceded Trump will be able to reassemble to mount a credible effort to retake what they have forfeited since 2016.
Graham would have likely been part of the pre-Trump vanguard. Despite his fealty to the current president, his roots run deep in traditional conservatism, especially on foreign policy and defense matters, which he learned from the late Senator John McCain earlier in his career. Graham, like Marco Rubio and other establishment hawks, decided that the best way to influence Trump’s thinking was to flatter him, stand with him publicly, and quietly push him in their preferred directions. (Savvy international leaders like NATO’s Mark Rutte and Japan’s Sanai Takaichi employ a similar approach.)
Trump’s critics have been scathing in their attacks on Graham and Rubio, calling them cowards, traitors, and worse. But they have arguably had more success in shaping Trump’s thinking—at least on some issues—than more public GOP opponents like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney. One of the biggest questions for the pre-Trump wing of the party is whether these two factions can put aside their differences to unite against a Trump loyalist who seeks to follow in his footsteps.
But the individual Republican who emerges from this intra-party fray will represent much more than the nominee who leads the GOP into battle in 2028. Given the fundamental remaking of the party that has taken place over the last decade, the stakes going forward could not be higher. The faction that claims victory may control its future for a generation, much in the way that the clashes between Reagan and Bush or between Goldwater and Rockefeller did in the late twentieth century.
Between now and the next presidential election, Graham’s absence may be even more impactful. He had been one of the most vocal supporters for continuing and increasing aid for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022 and had just returned from his tenth trip to that country just hours before he died. Given Trump’s recent enchantment with Ukraine’s military successes, Graham would have played a critical role as the US determines our future involvement there.
While there is wide bipartisan backing for a more assertive American presence in that region, it’s not clear who else in Trump’s orbit could or would fill Graham’s role. (Rubio may hold similar convictions, but as a member of Trump’s Cabinet and a potential presidential aspirant himself, he is not able to voice those sentiments as publicly and fervently as Graham has done.)
The US role in Ukraine is one of the most visible examples of a broader debate going on in Republican circles about how our country engages on the world stage in the years ahead, one that most of the rest of the world is closely watching. Populist isolationism still controls the bases of both political parties. Even Trump is learning the limits of how much his loyalists will tolerate his recent penchant for military adventurism: Vance or another MAGA successor is much less likely to test their patience. Rubio, Nikki Haley, and other pre-Trump Republicans would presumably be more willing to restore a traditionally muscular but conventionally multilateral ethos. We will learn in the next two years how primary voters feel about such a shift.
Graham would have never been president. But he would have been an important figure in determining his country’s next leader, his party’s future, and the international landscape on which seminal decisions regarding Ukraine, Taiwan, and other geopolitical flashpoints are looming. While his Senate seat will be filled in short order, there is no logical successor to assume his role in these critically important arguments.
Want to talk about this topic more? You can read more of Dan’s writing at www.danschnurpolitics.com.
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