What on earth has gotten into Lindsey Graham? The Republican establishment was always embarrassed by the loose cannon Donald Trump, but they’re sure giving him a run for the money now. On Thursday evening, Senator Graham (R-S.C.)
tweeted: “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.” He
followed up with a threat to the same people he was asking to do the world a service: “The only people who can fix this are the Russian people. Easy to say, hard to do. Unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the rest of the world in abject poverty, and live in darkness you need to step up to the plate.”
That doubled “live in darkness” gave rise to speculation that Graham may have been tweeting from cocktail hour, but in any case, his wild statements are vivid examples of how high the war fever against Russia is getting these days, and how reckless it really is. Imagine if a member of Russia’s Federal Assembly called on the American people to rise up and kill Old Joe Biden (since it would be harder to identify and locate whoever is really in charge), and threatened that Americans would “be isolated from the world in abject poverty, and live in darkness” if they did not do so. The outcry would be swift and shrill, and the Assembly member would become a living example for the West of the inherent belligerence and aggression of Putin’s regime.