Last night was the Republican special primary debate for the seat vacated by the late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
The special primary is this upcoming Tuesday.
His sister, Darline Graham, bereft of any experience in elected office or formal political roles generally, was appointed by SC Gov. Henry McMaster to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term, which ends in January.
That isn’t unusual. There’s a long history of relatives—particularly spouses—being appointed to a deceased politician’s seat in the wake of their death. It’s typically seen as a neutral maneuver, and more often than not, it avoids tricky questions over an incumbency advantage for those running to fill that vacancy permanently.
The complexity came when Ms. Graham announced her intention to run for a full term of six years in November. For someone with her lack of political and policy experience, that is highly unusual, and it raised more than a few eyebrows in political circles.
The general skepticism of her candidacy appears to have been validated by last night’s debate, in which Ms. Graham couldn’t help stumbling her way through the evening’s questions.
It wasn’t pretty.
During one of her responses, she claimed South Carolina has a population of 50 million people. There are actually 5.6 million folks living there. California, our nation’s most populous state, has just under 40 million residents.
There was no correction on her part. She seemed to truly believe South Carolina has a population equal to that of Spain or South Korea.
But the truly jarring moment came when Greta van Susteren (remember her?) asked Ms. Graham about the importance of Taiwan to the national security of the United States. (You can watch video of it here.)
Ms. Graham asked her to repeat the question—which bought her about five seconds of stalling—and then hesitated and said:
“I’m just gonna be honest here. I’m not on national security—I’m not—I’m not that informed on national security. So… but I do support the military.”
And that, my friends, may be the worst answer I’ve ever seen in any campaign debate.
Let me tell you why. It’s not just because someone running for the U.S. Senate—let alone the sister of foreign policy expert Lindsey Graham—should know a thing or two about Taiwan. That’s bad enough.
No, for me, as a political strategist, it’s also about the massive lost opportunity here.
This is the kind of question you hope to get when you’re running for the Senate, especially if foreign policy isn’t your specialty.
Because foreign policy is pretty vast and nuanced and prone to layers of complexity and vulnerable to a wide range of valid opinions.
Taiwan isn’t that complicated as an issue. It’s a foreign policy softball question. It’s basically a gimme. In fact, it might be the easiest question a Senate candidate could get in a debate.
It’s certainly the most “bang for your buck” issue to look like you know foreign policy when you don’t know anything about foreign policy.
Here’s the easy answer: “Taiwan is our ally on the front lines against the totalitarian overreach of China. They are central to global security. They are central to the global economy. They are central to our national security. We will never fail to stand beside this proud democracy and support the courageous people of Taiwan.”
That’s it. That’s all she had to say. That’s a Republican answer; that’s a Democratic answer; that’s an independent answer. Tens across the board. Easy peasy.
She really could have said anything in the way of “Taiwan is our ally,” and that would have been passable. Instead, she just kinda shrugged, said national security ain’t her thing, and kept it moving.
I realize some of y’all are thinking: “Charlotte, I gotta be honest: I don’t know shit about Taiwan, either. I sympathize with her deer-in-the-headlights reaction.”
Yes, friends, but y’all aren’t running for the United States Senate. Y’all are not asking for the terrible privilege of casting a future vote on whether or not we go to war with China after they invade Taiwan.
I wouldn’t expect the average American to have sizable knowledge on Sino-American relations and the role of Taiwan in the middle of all that.
But I would for damn sure expect a U.S. Senator to offer a reasonable summary on this matter because the United States Senate is not a foreign policy internship. It is not the place one goes to shrug and say, “hey, the world is complicated, whatcha gonna do.”
At minimum, I would expect someone running for the U.S. Senate to have a modicum of curiosity about China and its various threats to global security and American national security.
China is a totalitarian state with a wide range of human rights atrocities under its belt, including the ongoing genocide against its Uyghur population.
It has the world’s largest (and certainly most chilling) state surveillance infrastructure.
It ranks nearly dead last in press freedom (178th out of 180 countries) as assessed by Reporters Without Borders. Every human rights index ranks it near the bottom among all countries.
And moreover, Xi Jinping—China’s head of government—has made it one of his top goals to “reunify” Taiwan with the Chinese mainland and assert supremacy over that region of the world. The Taiwanese have been abundantly clear they do not want this.
For us Americans, the direct consequence of that would be a global economic depression and national security quagmire because Taiwan produces most of the world’s microchips, used in everything from the phone in your hands to the most advanced military weaponry in existence.
Believe it or not, so much of your daily existence revolves around Taiwan remaining free of Chinese domination.
That’s not to say racism and xenophobia toward the people of China should ever be tolerated. The people of China aren’t the problem. It’s their government that presents an existential threat to the world.
But that’s all bonus info in an election debate. That’s extra credit. All she had to say is that Taiwan is our ally, and we should unwaveringly stand beside them.
She couldn’t even do that.
Darline Graham is arguably the best example of how far the Republican Party has fallen during the Trump era of American politics.
This incurious and inexperienced person, armed with little more than a threadbare resume and no shortage of hubris, has been vaulted into a Senate vacancy and doesn’t seem to have any qualification for it beyond direct nepotism.
She doesn’t have any plans or ideas to improve the livelihoods of working class families in South Carolina or prevent their children from being killed in a disastrous, unnecessary war in Iran.
Her big ideas seem limited to “deporting the illegals” and attacking trans youth.
It’s no surprise that Trump endorsed her and that she’s touted herself as being to the right of her late brother, which, lemme tell y’all, is quite a pitch given that Sen. Graham wasn’t known for his moderate tendencies.
Anyway, I firmly believe this clown can be defeated by Dr. Annie Andrews, who is the Democratic nominee in this race. She’s brilliant, hardworking, and sure as hell knows about the importance of Taiwan while she’s fighting for working class families.
Let’s have her back against this clown show.