Why Won’t Lindsey Graham Fight Liberal Judges Like He Fights Foreign Wars?

I’m genuinely confused by Senator Lindsey Graham’s approach to judges, and I don’t think I’m alone among South Carolina Republicans.

For years, he has been one of the most aggressive voices in the Senate for intervention overseas—warning about threats from hostile regimes, radical Islamists, and dictators abroad, and urging America to spend blood and treasure to confront them. That kind of intensity makes it clear he understands what he believes to be serious dangers to our national security.

But when it comes to what many of us see as an equally serious, long‑term threat inside our own system—far‑left judges with lifetime appointments—he seems almost like a different person. Instead of that same urgency, we hear talk of bipartisanship, decorum, and “letting the process work.” As a Republican voter in South Carolina, I’m left wondering: why doesn’t he show the same determination to stop judicial nominees who may reshape the country for generations?

Look at some of the confirmations he has supported or allowed to move forward: On the Supreme Court, he helped confirm Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both of whom have consistently aligned with the Court’s liberal wing. Later, he voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the lower courts before opposing her Supreme Court nomination only after concerns about her record became politically unavoidable.

In the executive branch, he backed Merrick Garland for Attorney General, despite Garland’s long record of establishment liberal legal views and the obvious implications for how the Department of Justice would be run.

Then there are the lesser‑known but incredibly powerful judges on the D.C. District Court and D.C. Circuit—people like Beryl Howell, Amy Berman Jackson, and James Boasberg—who have played central roles in decisions affecting Trump, America First policies, and the broader administrative state. These are not obscure technical posts. They’re key choke points in the federal judiciary where almost every major separation‑of‑powers or executive‑authority fight ends up. Yet, Graham either supported or did not seriously oppose nominees whose judicial philosophy many conservatives see as fundamentally hostile to limited government and constitutional originalism.

From the perspective of a South Carolina Republican, this is where the puzzlement really sets in. We elect senators, in part, to be our shield against exactly this kind of long‑term institutional drift. Judges and justices serve for life. Their rulings can weaken borders, expand bureaucracy, impose radical social policies, and tie the hands of conservative administrations long after any one senator is gone. If Graham believes foreign enemies pose existential threats—and his rhetoric suggests he does—why does he not treat an aggressive, activist judiciary as at least as serious a challenge?

It’s not that Republican voters here are asking for blind obstruction or bad‑faith attacks. What we cannot understand is why he doesn’t use every legitimate tool at his disposal to slow or stop nominees who either have clearly left‑wing records or, in some cases, almost no judicial record at all, as with Beryl Howell. When a nominee comes with a thin paper trail, that should be a reason for extra scrutiny, not a green light. If we don’t know how they’ll rule, why not err on the side of caution instead of trusting that an administration openly committed to progressive goals would somehow send up a quiet moderate?

Democrats in the Senate have shown again and again that they are willing to fight tooth and nail against strong conservative nominees—delay tactics, media campaigns, character attacks, and tight party‑line votes are all routine. Republican voters see that. We see how seriously the left takes judicial power. That makes it even harder to understand why someone as savvy and experienced as Lindsey Graham does not match that level of intensity when it comes to opposing far‑left judges.

So the question, from a South Carolina Republican’s standpoint, is simple and sincere: Senator Graham, why don’t you fight as hard to protect us from lifetime judicial activists as you always seem to want to do to our adversaries overseas? Why does the fire in your belly seem to burn hottest for foreign entanglements, while it cools when the fight is about judges who will shape our laws, our freedoms, and our culture here at home?

We don’t need perfection, but we do expect clarity and consistency. If you believe America is in a struggle for its future—as your foreign‑policy speeches often suggest—then surely you must see that the battlefield is not only in distant countries but also in our own courtrooms. Your constituents want you to bring the same resolve to judicial nominations that you bring to foreign policy.

We know your vote alone may not make the difference, but you wield a lot of influence in the Senate. But more than that, you are our Senator, and we South Carolina Republicans expect to see you fight like a Democrat.