After defeated GOP Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) in a close U.S. Senate primary in deep red South Carolina, Sen. Darline Graham attacked the Democratic nominee, Annie Andrews, during her victory speech — including Andrews' call for universal health care. Graham made her point by remembering her parents' deaths. But according to The New Republic's Greg Sargent, Graham made a case for Andrews' position, not her own — and an examination of their deaths makes her argument even more "odd."
"Darline Graham, who just sashayed into the Senate seat of her late brother, Lindsey Graham, likes to tell a story about her parents," former Washington Post columnist Sargent explains in a New Republic article. "They both passed away fairly suddenly —her mother of Hodgkin's lymphoma and her father of a heart attack. She was a preteen at the time, and it's a compelling tale that lands well with audiences. But its latest iteration has gone viral for another reason: She juxtaposed her parents' death with a condemnation of 'government-run health care' in a way that inadvertently makes a strong case in its favor. And a glance back at Lindsey Graham's 2015 self-published memoir — which extensively recounts the passing of the parents — further reinforces the point."
During her speech, Graham attacked Andrews (who is a doctor) on "government-run health care" and said, "We didn't take vacations — if they were sick, they had to go to work. My mother passed away when I was 11, and my father just over a year later."
Sargent writes, "Darline Graham's vision, it seems, holds that because her own parents worked so hard, couldn't take sick days, and died untimely deaths, others shouldn't expect anything different. It's a particularly clumsy rendition of the idea that anyone who works hard will automatically have health care access in keeping with what they justly merit in life, and only the lazy and undeserving would ask for big government health care…. Darline Graham's tale about her parents is true enough. But when you dig into the details, her takeaway from it becomes even more surprising."
In a post on X, Sargent observes, "Darline Graham said that because her parents died when she was a kid, people today shouldn't want 'government health care.' So I dug up the real story of the death of Darline/Lindsey's parents. The details make her conclusion even odder."
According to Sargent, a close examination of the deaths of Darline Graham's parents—which her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham detailed in his book "My Story" — demonstrates that the "government-run health care" she condemns "can, and already does, avert premature deaths like these."
"Darline Graham watched her parents suffer premature death at a very young age," Sargent writes. "Yet her worldview holds that the government cannot — and should not — involve itself in health care, as Obamacare and other Democratic proposals do, to avert this lot in life for others."
Andrews, in an interview, told Sargent, "I believe that Darline's parents deserved better. I believe that everyone in America deserves better."
