“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”

Reflecting on Tuesday’s midterm election results, a shellacking by Democrats that served as a rebuke to President Donald Trump, this quote deserves another look.

In 2016, in the midst of a heated Republican primary race, with assorted candidates jockeying to be the party’s presidential nominee, those words were posted by what now seems a surprising source: the late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Of course, Graham himself had been one of the candidates in that bitter contest. Insults like “lightweight” and “jackass” were tossed back and forth, and Trump publicly shared Graham’s cellphone number. (Trump finally apologized for that stunt — at Graham’s funeral this past July. Better late than never, I suppose.)

By the time of Graham’s death this year, though, his earlier self would not have recognized the senator from South Carolina who had transformed himself into one of the president’s golfing buddies and closest allies.

In May of this year, after Sen. Bill Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary to a Trump-backed opponent, Graham reasoned on NBC News that Cassidy lost because he “tried to destroy” the president, and warned the same fate would befall any Republican who crossed Trump. “This is the party of Donald Trump.”

Why the switch? “He allowed me into his world. That’s great,” he told The New York Times.

Lindsey Graham stayed relevant, with a desired seat at the table — at a cost to his political reputation and legacy.

After he died, Graham’s sister was appointed to complete his Senate term and was then pushed to run for a full term by her brother’s onetime nemesis Donald Trump. The president’s endorsement pushed Darline Graham past a more experienced Republican, Rep. Ralph Norman, in the Senate primary.

That she played a part in the Republicans’ historic midterm loss is a full-circle moment that Shakespeare would relish.

Et tu, South Carolina?

Graham lost to Dr. Annie Andrews, as the state elected a Democratic senator for the first time in decades. It came as a big surprise, especially to those Republicans who, like Lindsey Graham, started out as skeptics of the inexperienced, cruel president before making peace with the man, his policies, and his power.

MAGA swallowed the GOP, and voters who elected Trump in 2016 and 2024 followed.

Until they didn’t.

What was the breaking point for the people who ignored millions of dollars in attack ads on their way to the polls?

In Ohio, was it the Vivek Ramaswamy ad that dredged up opponent Amy Acton’s childhood trauma, supported by Trump and Vice President JD Vance?

In the South, was it the seeming glee of Republican state legislatures as they gerrymandered districts with substantial African American constituencies, all with the blessing of a Supreme Court-weakened Voting Rights Act?

In Texas, did Hispanic voters who swung to Trump in 2024 realize that ICE’s definition of “the worst of the worst” included business owners, grandmoms, and schoolchildren?

Did tariffs turn off farmers as it affected expenses and bottom lines?

Did Americans rebel when they saw their dollars buy less while the president gushed over gold trinkets, a ballroom and a reflecting pool his hand-picked contractors couldn’t fix, and made billions for himself and his family?

Did the Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, the racism and homophobia in the name of Jesus leave true people of faith or just plain decent people disgusted?

In South Carolina, Darline Graham didn’t explain her plans for the economy or for fighting corruption or foreign entanglements, except to say “national security is not my thing” on a debate stage.

But the candidate with a scant resume did manage at a South Carolina rally to call her opponent “bats--t crazy” while standing next to an approving Trump, who coined his own anti-trans slur for Andrews.

Andrews responded by saying: “If name-calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices, he can call me all the names he wants. But I don’t think that’s going to get the job done.” In a state with 14 counties “without a single OB/Gyn,” as Andrews has said, the emptiness of insults is hard to miss.

Whatever lessons they draw from Tuesday, Democrats should not get comfortable.

Angry, hurting voters expect results — fast.

But for now, it’s hard not to recall the warning issued and then forgotten 10 years ago, with the hope that Republicans realize the old Lindsey might have been right all along.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. She is host of the CQ Roll Call “Equal Time with Mary C. Curtis” podcast. Follow her on X @mcurtisnc3.

Reprinted with permission from Roll Call