Thursday
Joy Reid, MSNBC’s newest primetime host, recently made a literary reference that has changed the way I see a certain Republican senator. South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, she observed, has been playing Renfield to Donald Trump’s Dracula.
Graham is noteworthy for his dramatic change from tough Trump critic to leading Trump sycophant, leading some to wonder whether Trump or Putin is blackmailing him. Or perhaps (this would be a more plausible interpretation), he has sold his soul to ward off a rightwing primary challenge. Whatever the case, the senator who once charted an independent course now delivers up daily versions of Renfield’s call-out to the Count:
I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?
When he says this, Renfield has momentarily escaped from his insane asylum. In order to become closer to his master, he has become a bloodsucker, starting with flies before moving up to spiders, birds and rats.
Come to think of it, Vice President Mike Pence might be a better candidate for Trump’s Renfield given that he even mimics Trump’s tiny movements. Graham is not far behind, however. While the president is America’s premier bloodsucker, making free use of “other people’s money” and accomplishments, Pence and Graham now leach off of Trump. They are learning their craft from a master.
In Stoker’s novel, Renfield has a moment where he comes to his senses and tries to escape the vampire. Unfortunately, he suffers a version of the fate that is metaphorically visited upon former Trump associates who try to break free:
When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor—indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:—
“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralyzed.”
In other words, everything Dracula touches dies.
Trump has maintained control over the GOP as Dracula does over his victims. While he may not be able to glide between the bars of a maniac’s cell, his tweets have had their own brutal efficacy.
Many of us are praying that Joe Biden proves to be our Van Helsing, putting a stake in the monster who has been draining America of its lifeblood. Dracula’s enablers must be dealt with as well.