Kindness Is a Social Currency: What Lindsey Graham’s Death Reminded Me About the Politics America Needs

I do not want politicians to be merely nice. I want them to be strong enough to defend people without losing the kindness that made them seek public office.

Lindsey Graham’s death brought back a memory I had almost forgotten.

Like many Americans, I understood why his critics opposed him. Many of their concerns were legitimate. His political choices, alliances, rhetoric, and approach to war gave people serious reasons to challenge him.

But even through those disagreements, I had always perceived Lindsey Graham as something else:

A necessary tool. An incredibly talented and effective one.

I do not use the word tool to diminish his humanity. I mean that he understood how political power worked. He understood institutions. He understood television. He understood persuasion, pressure, loyalty, negotiation, conflict, and timing.

He knew how to enter a national conversation and become consequential inside it.

Whether one agreed with the purpose for which his political abilities were used, it was difficult to deny that he knew how to use them.

There are politicians who occupy office. There are politicians who comment on power. And there are politicians who know how to move it. Lindsey Graham knew how to move it.

That is partly why one particular moment affected me so deeply.

Following the American military campaign against Iran — and after a strike hit a girls’ primary school in Minab, killing children — I remember coming across an interview in which Graham was defending the government’s actions.

I don’t remember every word. What stayed with me was his face. Something about it made me uneasy.

I want to be careful here. A face is not evidence. I cannot know what another human being was feeling internally, and it would be unfair to assign an emotion to him with certainty. Maybe I interpreted the moment incorrectly. Perhaps what I perceived was conviction. Perhaps it was relief.

Perhaps it was the emotional release that sometimes follows fear, conflict, anger, or the belief that an enemy has finally been confronted.

Anything can become a vehicle for emotional release.

But I have long carried with me a teaching that I associate with Asian and Islamic wisdom:

Even when you believe an enemy must be defeated, you should never learn to enjoy killing your enemy.

The distinction matters.

There may be moments when governments believe force is necessary.

There may be threats that leaders have a responsibility to confront.

There may be decisions that carry terrible consequences regardless of which option is chosen.

But when human suffering becomes emotionally satisfying — when the destruction of an enemy begins to resemble pleasure — something essential is placed at risk. Especially, in the society watching.

That interview affected me enough that I began thinking about becoming politically involved in South Carolina’s Senate election.

I wondered whether I could help another candidate win Lindsey Graham’s seat in November.

Not because I believed Graham had no value.

Perhaps the opposite.

I understood how valuable his political abilities were.

But I had begun questioning what those abilities were being used to protect — and what kind of emotional culture they were helping create.

Now, I will never have that opportunity.

His death ended that political possibility before I could decide what role, if any, I would play.

But it opened another door in my mind.

Lindsey Graham’s death occurred while Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim mayor, was serving in New York City.

And somehow, those two realities met inside me.

His death returned me to the hope I once felt about Mamdani.

Not merely the hope that a Muslim and African could win public office.

Representation alone was never the entire promise.

The deeper hope came from something I had been taught in Muslim schools, Muslim households, and Muslim culture — something that sometimes becomes lost in ordinary human interaction, including among Muslims ourselves.

The idea that kindness is not merely an occasional act. It is not simply generosity.

It is not only compassion toward the poor.

It is not just giving money, feeding someone, forgiving a mistake, helping a neighbor, or speaking gently. Kindness is a way of moving through society. It is a responsibility.

It is a form of discipline. And perhaps most importantly:

Kindness is a social currency.

The Hope I Saw in Mamdani

When Mamdani emerged as a serious political figure, part of my hope was connected to what his presence could represent. Not the idea that Muslims are automatically kinder than other people. We are not. Muslims can become rigid. We can become dismissive.

Muslims can become angry, cruel, self-righteous, politically opportunistic, or disconnected from the very values our faith teaches.

Like every religious community, we sometimes preserve the language of our beliefs while losing their emotional meaning in our everyday behavior.

So this is not an argument for Muslim moral superiority. It is an argument for Muslim responsibility.

I grew up with the belief that a person who truly understands the spirit of Islam should recognize kindness not as weakness, but as an obligation.

Not as something reserved for people who agree with us, something offered only when it is politically convenient, or something performed publicly while abandoned privately.

Kindness should influence how power is exercised, how disagreement is approached, the vulnerable are treated, how authority responds to criticism.

It should also influence how leaders speak to frightened people, how governments respond when citizens say, “This policy is hurting us.”

For much of history, Muslims have carried the hope that people would not understand our culture only through conflict, terrorism, war, restriction, or fear — but through the character of people whose actions demonstrate what our values can contribute to society.

For me, the highest fulfillment of Muslim representation in American public office would not be the election itself, it would be what happens afterward.

Could a person shaped by Muslim culture enter government and demonstrate that kindness is not merely an emotion?

Could that person show that compassion and strength are not opposites?

Could they defend citizens without humiliating those who disagree?

Could they listen ?

But perhaps, most importantly, could that person help make kindness valuable again?

That is part of the hope I placed in Mamdani.

And Lindsey Graham’s death unlocked that memory in my mind.

I Do Not Want Politicians to Be “Nice”

America has already tried political niceness.

And at times, niceness has meant polished language without structural change.

It has meant smiling while people continue to struggle.

It’s meant avoiding necessary conflict because confrontation may appear impolite.

It’s also meant protecting decorum while citizens feel unheard.

Niceness can become performance.

Niceness can become passivity. It can become a way of maintaining comfort.

That is not what I am asking for. I also do not believe America needs greater political rigidity. We have tried that too in our 250 years of existence.

Rigidity says there is only one acceptable vision of the country. It treats questions as disloyalty and sees disagreement as an obstacle to eliminate rather than information to examine.

Rigidity may create the appearance of strength, but eventually people stop feeling represented. Their fears are dismissed.

Their concerns are reduced to political labels and their voices are treated as threats. This happens everywhere on the planet.

And government becomes something imposed on people rather than built with them.

Neither niceness nor rigidity is working.

Perhaps it is time for another political era.

An era in which people enter politics primarily to defend people: their people, our people, us. All of us.

The people whose lives they have accepted responsibility for.

And perhaps politicians should defend those people in a way that reflects the kindness already present in ordinary American hearts.

Because despite everything we see on television and social media, Americans are often extraordinarily kind.

People help strangers. Neighbors raise money for families they barely know. Communities respond to fires, floods, illness, hunger, grief, and tragedy. People volunteer. They donate. They forgive. They provide meals. They open their homes. They help someone carry a stroller up subway stairs. They offer directions. They stay with injured strangers until help arrives.

There is kindness everywhere in America. But our politics does not always reflect it.

Sometimes political systems appear to reward the hardest voice rather than the strongest heart.

The cruelest statement receives the greatest attention.

Humiliation becomes entertainment. Anger becomes authenticity. Refusing to listen becomes conviction. Compromise becomes weakness.

And eventually, citizens begin imitating the emotional behavior that public life rewards.

That is why public figures carry a responsibility larger than their policies. They influence the value of human behavior.

Public Figures Help Set the Exchange Rate

Currency has value because people agree that it has value.

It moves between people, creates relationships.

It makes exchange possible. Its value can rise, and fall.

It can be strengthened through trust, and can be weakened through instability.

Kindness functions similarly.

When kindness is respected, people become more willing to practice it.

When compassion is associated with courage, people become less afraid to demonstrate compassion.

When leaders listen seriously to criticism, listening gains public value.

When powerful people apologize, humility gains value.

When political opponents can disagree without denying one another’s humanity, dignity gains value.

But when cruelty repeatedly creates fame, money, votes, influence, and attention, cruelty becomes socially profitable.

When humiliation wins elections, people learn to humiliate.

When rage builds audiences, people learn to perform rage.

When public figures treat empathy as weakness, citizens may begin hiding their empathy to appear strong.

Public figures do not create every social value.

But because millions of people observe them, they help establish the exchange rate. They help determine which qualities appear politically valuable and which qualities seem obsolete.

That influence should not be treated casually. A politician does more than vote. A mayor does more than administer a city. A president does more than sign laws.

Every public leader participates in teaching citizens what power looks like. The question is:

What emotional qualities become more valuable because this person held power?

Strength Without the Enjoyment of Suffering

I still believe governments must protect people. I do not believe kindness requires surrender. Kindness does not mean pretending threats are harmless.

It does not mean allowing violence to continue. It does not mean abandoning national security. It does not mean that every political conflict can be resolved through polite conversation.

But there must remain a difference between protecting people and enjoying power over another human being.

There must remain a difference between defeating a threat and becoming emotionally attached to destruction.

There must remain a difference between strength and cruelty.

Perhaps that is what unsettled me during the Lindsey Graham interview. Not certainty that I knew what he felt.

A fear about what power can become when emotional release and military force begin occupying the same space.

And perhaps his death now asks me to look at that memory with greater complexity.

Because a human being cannot be reduced to one expression.

A political career cannot be reduced to one interview.

A person can be effective and flawed.

Necessary and dangerous.

Generous in private and harmful in public.

Capable of friendship and responsible for decisions that others experience as devastating.

Human beings contain contradictions.

Public figures do too.

Recognizing Graham’s political talent does not require agreement with everything he did.

Recognizing the legitimacy of his critics does not require denying his humanity.

Perhaps kindness begins there.

Not by erasing judgment.

By refusing simplification.

From Muslim Leadership to American Leadership

I hope Mamdani can demonstrate this form of leadership. Not because kindness belongs to Islam alone. It does not.

Every religious tradition, culture, philosophy, family, and community contains teachings about compassion, dignity, generosity, mercy, responsibility, and care.

But to reflect that.

Mamdani’s presence gives him an opportunity.

He can show that a person shaped by Muslim culture can bring into public office an understanding of kindness as something larger than charity. Something governmental, civic, structural. Something strong.

And if he can demonstrate it, perhaps the Democratic Party can learn from it.

But this should not become only a Democratic idea.

Kindness cannot survive if it becomes another partisan possession.

Republicans should practice it.

Democrats should practice it.

Independents should practice it.

Conservatives should practice it.

Progressives should practice it.

Religious leaders should practice it.

Business leaders should practice it.

Journalists should practice it.

Citizens should practice it.

The goal is not to make every American politically identical. The goal is to create a nation strong enough to hear disagreement without immediately treating disagreement as an enemy.

A nation that does not force one vision upon citizens before understanding why they are afraid. A nation that can defend its values while listening to the people affected by its decisions. A nation that recognizes that citizens are not obstacles to governance.

They are the purpose of governance.

Kindness in Public Policy

Kindness must become more than rhetoric.

A government cannot call itself compassionate while making its systems impossible to navigate. A politician cannot speak warmly about working families while ignoring them when they say a policy is making life harder. A city cannot celebrate diversity while allowing residents, immigrants, entrepreneurs, students, and small-business owners to become lost between institutions.

Kindness in public policy means listening before assuming.

It means explaining rather than merely directing.

It means building pathways rather than celebrating opportunities that only well-connected people can access.

It means treating confusion as a gap to close — not evidence that a person does not belong.

It means understanding that strength is not measured only by how firmly government acts. Strength is also measured by whether people trust government enough to speak honestly.

A kind government does not promise everyone the answer they want.

It promises that their humanity will not disappear simply because the answer is no.

A kind leader does not avoid difficult decisions. A kind leader remembers who must live with them.

A New Political Era

Perhaps America does not need nicer politicians. Perhaps it needs kinder politics.

There is a difference.

Niceness can avoid conflict. Kindness enters conflict with purpose.

Niceness may seek approval. Kindness seeks protection.

Niceness can remain silent to preserve comfort. Kindness may confront power because people are being harmed.

Niceness asks, “How can I avoid upsetting anyone?” Kindness asks, “How can I defend people without losing my humanity?”

That may be the political era we need. An era in which leaders are neither passive nor rigid. Neither emotionally detached nor governed entirely by emotion. Neither afraid of strength nor addicted to force.

An era in which public office is understood primarily as a responsibility to protect people — and to reflect the kindness of heart that citizens already practice every day.

I do not know what Lindsey Graham would have thought of this reflection.

I do not know whether my perception of that interview was fair.

I do not know whether I would have followed through on helping another candidate challenge him in November.

I will never receive the opportunity to find out.

But his death gave me something else.

It returned an idea to me.

It reminded me why representation once mattered to me beyond symbolism.

It reminded me of what I hoped a Muslim mayor might contribute to American public life. And reminded me that strength without kindness eventually becomes force. And that kindness without strength may become only intention.

We need both. America needs both.

Perhaps that is the opportunity before Mamdani.

Perhaps it is the opportunity before the Democratic Party.

Perhaps it is the opportunity before every political party.

Perhaps it is the opportunity before all of us.

To build a country strong enough to protect its people. Humble enough to hear them. Courageous enough to disagree. And kind enough to remember why power exists in the first place.

Kindness is a social currency. Public figures help set its value.

And perhaps it is time for America to make it valuable again.