Every time the President of the United States does something reprehensible, it offers his allies a chance to disgrace themselves in front of the world. That sound you hear is opportunity knocking, after Donald Trump engaged in a blatantly racist attack on four members of Congress this weekend, telling the women of color to go back to the countries from which they came, despite the fact that three of them were born in the United States and all four are U.S. citizens. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley are not Real Americans, you see—they are The Other. And because they are The Other, they have no right to question American policy or how the country is run—despite the fact they were elected by their constituents to do exactly that. Trump believes Certain People should just be happy to be here.

Anyway, this situation was readymade for Lindsey Graham, the political parasite who has debased himself before the throne in recent months. We can safely expect the South Carolina senator will do anything to serve The Leader in the days ahead, not least because he's proven himself a willing apparatchik even as Trump regularly and brutally kicks dirt on the grave of John McCain, a man Graham previously attached himself to and called a dear friend before the power center of the Republican Party moved to the outright ethnonationalists. No, if Graham can accept that, he'll accept anything if it means he can stay a United States senator. Which is why he went on Fox & Friends Monday to double down on Trump's smears.

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.@LindseyGrahamSC on Fox & Friends: "We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists ... they're anti-Semitic. They're anti-America." pic.twitter.com/lsFqZi1Eu8 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2019

Needless to say, nobody in The Squad—or the Democratic Party—is a Communist. Omar did describe the Israeli government's influence on American politics through lobbyists in loaded language, but criticism of the Israeli government is not in itself anti-Semitic. (Also, calling others anti-Semites while defending a man who said "very fine people" march alongside Nazis is rich.) While some historians who specialize in the area would characterize our system of detention centers at the border as "concentration camps," it's not clear when any of these four members of Congress referred to Border Patrol officers as "concentration-camp guards." But most of all, questioning or criticizing U.S. government policies is not un-American or unpatriotic or a sign you hate the country. If you do not like your child's behavior and tell them so in the hopes they will improve, does that mean you hate your kid?

Of course not. But Graham isn't interested in a real discussion of ways we can improve the country. He's not really interested in persuading people with his rhetoric. He has learned the power of demagoguery straight from the source, and he has embraced language as a blunt-force weapon to beat down opponents. Call them every name in the book, regardless of its relationship to reality, and keep up the attack until they surrender. And make no mistake: suggesting that the same people the president just dismissed as foreigners are trying to undermine the country from within is incredibly dangerous.

Meanwhile, here are the conditions at the border these congresspeople tried to call attention to last week, and that the president—and Graham—find entirely acceptable.

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A few other images from inside: pic.twitter.com/0s7nLXyT3p — Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) July 12, 2019

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Pool report from @jdawsey1 with @VP and GOP lawmakers on trip to McAllen, Tx, border patrol station. pic.twitter.com/jFv4L8xSwq — David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) July 12, 2019

In the end, Graham's double-down was probably the most effective, if disgusting, defense. (It was also very likely cooked up during his golf game with the president this weekend. Trump—or some toad in his employ—transcribed Graham's rant and blasted it out to his Twitter followers soon after.) While Texas Republican Chip Roy offered a tepid break with Trump, pretty much every other Republican officeholder met a brazen racist attack from the U.S. president with silence. Except, that is, for Andy Harris:

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Maryland Congressman @RepAndyHarrisMD tells me President Trump's tweets this weekend were "clearly not racist" and that "he could have meant go back to the district they came from--to the neighborhood they came from." Full interview https://t.co/avXhiW2uBP — Bryan Nehman (@BryanNehman) July 15, 2019

Congressman—the tweets say "countries." You're embarrassing yourself, like the Trump campaign guy who said the president did not say "go back" when the president's tweet said "go back." It's very low-energy gaslighting, because at this point the president is surely struggling to find talented people to perform demeaning tasks on his behalf until he stabs them in the back and shoves them out the door. Certainly, he won't get anyone with a shred of ethics. But he's survived this long, and we're about to find out what else he's willing to do to keep surviving. It's not going to be pretty, and supine allies like Graham are not going to like their place in the history books, assuming we make it that far.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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