8/26: Lindsey Graham Takes a Stand Against QAnon

8/26/20

Graham talks happy talk

As Americans watched the hailstorm of blatant lies and the vertiginous spin of the Republican National Convention this week, there was one small moment of candor from Republican Lindsey Graham.

On Thursday, Graham tossed aside the QAnon movement, which all but worships Donald Trump, by saying that "QAnon is bat sh*t crazy." This was during an interview with a Snapchat journalist.

“[QAnon is] Crazy stuff," he said. "Inspiring people to violence. I think it is a platform that plays off people’s fears, that compels them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. And it’s very much a threat.”

Graham, however, is known for speaking his mind and making a backward somersault later. Republicans are using one such flipflop in an ad supporting Graham in his own North Carolina. There, a lot of Republicans have come to dislike Trump and are thinking of voting for Biden.

The new ad takes footage from an ad that Graham made to back Joe Biden waaaay back in 2015. In the ad, Graham said Biden was “as good a man as God ever created” and called President Donald Trump a “xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot.” The ads are supposed to prove that Graham doesn't back Donald Trump. I'm not sure why Republicans think it will work.

In any case, Graham doesn't like QAnon right now. He suggested repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents social media from being sued for user content if the platform makes good-faith efforts to moderate it. For instance, the owners of Comet Pizza, the site of Pizzagate, would be able to sue a social media site that let QAnon run rampant on its pages. Said Graham, "The only way I know to make people more responsible who run these websites is to allow lawsuits when they go too far.”

If a national disaster takes place in the form of Trump's reelection, we'll see if Graham changes his mind on QAnon, too.


"Lindsey Graham" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/513932-lindsey-graham-qanon-is-bats-t-crazy?fbclid=IwAR3cZ5s3_OkdylS_K-VEPql9DCZJDwFAwr9UUqU0dDYrFbiPj9AwZGF0Mco