Wednesday night on “The Daily Show,” Trevor Noah had Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) over to play a game of pool. In a campaign season where Republican frontrunners are honestly proposing a complete ban on all Muslim immigration into America, their conversation was a welcome moment of sanity.
Lindsey Graham, a conservative war hawk, voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, campaigned for intervention in Syria in 2011, and recently endorsed the use of “consistent” force against Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Apparently oblivious to America’s track record in the Middle East, Graham believes Western intervention serves as a viable antidote to the region’s problems, namely ISIS’s “40,000 hardened jihadists.”
However, terrorism isn’t a nation with an army; it’s a set of ideas. And ideas don’t get hurt by bullets and bombs. That’s a point that Noah made sure came across.
“At what point do you admit that you can’t kill an ideology?” Noah asked.
Graham responded with saber-rattling: “You can kill these bastards.”
Nonetheless, in today’s hyper-charged political environment where bipartisan consensus has gone the way of MH370 (vanished almost completely), it’s comforting to see two people find common ground.
“If you’re saying 99 percent of these people don’t believe in [radical Islam], would you then agree, from that logic, that Muslims are not the problem?” Noah asked.
“Muslims are the answer to the problem,” Graham said. “They’re not bad people. Their religion is not the problem. It’s radical Islam who has co-opted their religion.”
The Senator’s comments highlight the possibility that rational thought still exists in the American political process. But they also point to a rupture in Republican ideology.
Graham, if you recall, announced his presidential campaign last summer. Despite receiving single-digit polling numbers, he managed to slog on before dropping out in December 2015, leaving behind a Republican field best described as one short-fingered orangutan, one diehard conservative, and one hopeless centrist.
This next sentence would be ridiculous two years ago, but here goes: Lindsey Graham is now a moderate. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who together control two-thirds of the primary electorate according to national polling averages, have pushed the GOP to the fringes of its conservative dogma, falling back on nationalism and xenophobia where it suits them.
Trump wants an all-out ban on Muslim travel to the U.S., while Cruz recently called for law enforcement to “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods that he sees at hotbeds of radicalization. Both are direct affronts the principles of American democracy.
Neither harbors room for nuance. Each candidate prefers to paint the issues in broad strokes. Obsessively stuck to their narrow doctrine, they remain unable to address America’s convoluted relationship with the Muslim world.
Warmongering aside, Lindsey Graham’s visit to the Daily Show, though only a soundbite, shows a recognition of complexity. If only his party’s would-be nominees followed his example. So just for this once, Graham, good on you.
