Inside the rabid cabal lurking behind fight to hurl Lindsey Graham out of Congress

Sen. Lindsey Graham, an enthusiastic backer of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, faces an anti-interventionist insurgency at home in South Carolina, where he’s fending off a challenge from businessman Mark Lynch in the state’s June 9 primary.

A self-styled “America First” candidate, Lynch has attacked Graham by calling him a “warmonger” who cares more about “a fancy ballroom than he does your sons and daughters dying in the Middle East.”

Differences over foreign policy aside, Lynch’s candidacy taps into the more extreme tradition of far-right politics, compared to Graham’s relative moderation.

Graham is running with the endorsement of Trump, who dismissed Lynch as a “lunatic” while expressing annoyance that Graham’s challenger supported Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a critic of the war against Iran.

“Mark Lynch would be a DISASTER for the Republican Party, and Lindsey Graham just, GETS THE JOB DONE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Lynch has racked up endorsements from retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor; former Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino; Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet; and Ivan Raiklin, the self-styled “secretary of retribution.”

Graham has become a target of anger for the restive MAGA faction, which sees the war with Iran as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to avoid getting the United States into new wars. Among Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, Graham distinguished himself by urging the U.S. to seize Iran’s Kharg Island and saying he would be willing to send South Carolina’s “sons and daughters” to the Middle East.

Speaking at an anti-war rally in Michigan last month, Raiklin dangled a red cap inscribed with the words “Dump Lindsey” from a mic stand.

“Do you want your president listening to Lindsey Graham?” Raiklin asked.

“No!” the crowd thundered in response.

“If you’re in South Carolina, primary this scumbag,” Raiklin said, “so he’s no longer golfing down at Mar-a-Lago promoting the war machine.”

The Graham campaign did not respond to questions concerning this story.

Lynch, who trails Graham by about 20 points in recent polls, has attempted to strike a delicate balance between supporting Trump and appealing to the MAGA dissidents.

“I believe that the job of a U.S. senator is to uphold their oath to the Constitution, represent the interests of the constituents, and promote America First principles,” Lynch told Raw Story. “And I would support everything President Trump does to those ends.”

At the same time, Lynch is staking positions markedly to the right of Graham by vocally supporting white Christian nationalism, while embracing a theocratic doctrine that critics view as anti-constitutional.

Lynch has used his X account to argue that “white replacement is real,” while expressing agreement with a call for religious exclusion by a violent Jan. 6 rioter who has faced multiple criminal charges since Trump pardoned him for his conduct at the Capitol.

During an angry tirade directed at a city council in the Dallas suburbs last month, Jake Lang accused the city of replacing “white people” with Muslims and Hindus, while declaring that the United States “is a Christian country” and suggesting that Muslims and Hindus can’t be Texans.

“Gotta say, I agree with Jake Lang here,” Lynch wrote on X.

Asked how he reconciles Lang’s views with the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion, Lynch told Raw Story, “Islam is not a religion; it is a theocratic construct that should be banned in the United States.”

Lynch’s friendliness with Lang and other Jan. 6 rioters who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol lines up with his ultraconservative activism as founder of a group called United Patriots Alliance that has promoted the controversial “doctrine of lesser magistrates.”

Lynch introduced the Rev. Matthew Trewhella, a Wisconsin pastor who popularized the doctrine, during an event sponsored by United Patriots Alliance in Greer, S.C. in September 2024.

Trewhella, who advocates for the criminalization of abortion and homosexuality, described the doctrine in an interview with United Patriots Alliance tactical strategist Ethan Mulch as holding that “when the higher-ranking civil authority makes unjust or immoral law, policy, or court opinion, the God-given right of the lesser civil authority is not to obey.

“They’re to stand between the tyranny of the superior civil authority and the people they represent,” Trewhella continued. “It’s called interposition. You can do it verbally, or physically, or both. And it’s massively needed in our day.”

Trewhella published his book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, in 2013 following more than two decades in the anti-abortion movement. Although Trewhella has claimed that he advocates for nonviolence, ProPublica has reported that after an activist killed an anti-abortion provider in 1993, Trewhella signed a document describing the murder as “justifiable.” The outlet also reported that Trewhella praised a man convicted of murdering another abortion provider by saying that future generations would view him “as the sanest and bravest man of our age.”

Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates who has tracked the Christian right for more than four decades, told Raw Story that Trewhella’s message is “a dangerous anti-constitutional and revolutionary doctrine.

“The people who follow this, they might have a tendency to vigilante action,” Clarkson said. “If you feel like you’ve got a handle on God’s law and the boss doesn’t, it’s your job to take him out, even if your boss is an elected official. We have a method of holding tyrants to account — they’re called elections.”

While introducing Trewhella at the event in Greer in 2024, Lynch said, “Tonight’s a lesson about the obligation of churches to control their local governments.”

Lynch said at the time that he hadn’t been familiar with the Wisconsin pastor, and that Mulch helped arrange Trewhella’s visit to South Carolina. Mulch was previously involved with the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative, anticommunist group founded in 1958.

After hearing Trewhella’s presentation, Lynch enthusiastically embraced his message, while promising to read The Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates.

“I’m going to renew my mind and study this, because that’s going to help me teach everybody I know everything I need to know out of God’s word that’s right here about these topics,” Lynch said. “That’s power in this knowledge.”

Lynch defended the “doctrine of lesser magistrates” in a written statement to Raw Story.

“America is a constitutional republic with democratic elections, but because our system is built on limited government, checks and balances, federalism, and individual rights, a lawful official resisting unconstitutional overreach is not anti-constitutional,” he said. “It is exactly what an oath to the Constitution requires.

Trewhella has forged relationships with elected officials, including former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and an array of state lawmakers and county commissioners, according to ProPublica. But Lynch stands out, Clarkson said, as a candidate for federal office.

“I haven’t heard of a prominent U.S. Senate candidate embracing the ‘doctrine of the lesser magistrates,’” Clarkson told Raw Story. “I think it’s something that should be of concern to people of all parties and in all parts of the country that these ideas have gotten to this level in our national discourse — it’s a symptom.”

During Trewhella’s visit to South Carolina, Lynch asked the pastor to comment on DEI, a framework used by corporations, universities and governments to pursue “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

“It’s a pipeline for racism and homo-sex,” Trewhella told Lynch.

“Right,” Lynch said. “Evil, right?”

Lynch hasn’t backed away from that position.

In a statement to Raw Story, he characterized DEI as “anti-white discrimination,” while claiming that “in the last 70 years, white Americans have been the only group not allowed to advocate for their interests.”

Later in his remarks following Trewhella’s presentation, Lynch linked the “doctrine of the lesser magistrates” to militia activity.

“We all have a responsibility to carry this knowledge forward and create an army out there,” Lynch said, adding that Mulch had discussed “the militia” during a class on constitutional law offered to 110 employees of Lynch’s appliance store.

“The militia is us, we the people,” Lynch said. “When the tyrants come, are we ready? And if they ever get our weapons, then that’s the end of all of it. And so, I hope you all are ready in that arena, too. And we have gun training at my gun range.”

Lynch dismissed concerns about militia activity undermining the rule of law in a statement to Raw Story by citing a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the third president and a signer of the Declaration of Independence: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Lynch has aligned himself with the Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump, not only by expressing agreement with Lang, but also by re-posting at least two others on X.

The Jan. 6 community has treated Graham, the sitting senator and incumbent, with distrust since he took to the Senate floor after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, and said, “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.” Graham ended that speech by saying, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected, and will be the president and vice president of the United States on January 20^th.”

After Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a controversial $1.8 billion weaponization fund meant to compensate January 6 insurrectionists, among others, had been scrapped, Graham made a gesture suggesting he’s trying to repair the relationship with them.

“To suggest nothing happened and that the Biden DOJ did not weaponize the law against Americans is inaccurate,” he posted on X on [Tuesday, June 2]. He went on to say he was proposing “a weaponization fund that will be available to those who can prove their claim against the federal government through the Federal Tort Claims Act.”

Lynch, meanwhile, has promoted the false claim that the Jan. 6 attack was orchestrated by federal law enforcement to discredit Trump.

“Congress must get to the bottom of the J6 fed-surrection to ensure a fair 50 state federal election,” he posted on X in February. He then accused a handful of “commie-run” states won by Biden in 2020 of blocking Trump electors “from being ratified lawfully.”