GROVEL ROAD:

It was Lindsey Graham who most memorably summarised the choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz at the close of the 2016 Republican primary elections: did voters want to be shot or poisoned? Republicans opted to be shot. But that was not before Mr Graham had called Mr Trump a "race-baiting xenophobic bigot" -- and much else besides.

Today, the South Carolina Republican is among Mr Trump's most brazen flatterers. He was among the first to suggest that the US president might deserve a Nobel Prize for his North Korea diplomacy. The Russia probe is a sham and Hillary Clinton should be in jail, he believes. Meanwhile, Mr Graham now says there is no evidence to suggest Mr Trump is racist.

What happened? The unenlightening answer is that Mr Trump won. That is why other Trump detractors such as Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Mr Cruz flipped from enmity to sycophancy in a heartbeat. Some of their roads to Damascus were even stranger than Mr Graham's. Mike Huckabee, for example, called the New York property developer every name imaginable. Now the former Arkansas governor -- and father of White House spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- compares Mr Trump with Winston Churchill.

Career politicians gravitate to power. But in Mr Trump's case they must do so conspicuously. Anything short of nonstop praise will go unnoticed. Politicians who once shunned Lyndon Baines Johnson changed their tune after John F Kennedy was assassinated. But they did not have to broadcast their allegiance every day. They feared LBJ's capacity to be ruthless. But he judged them on how they acted, not by the lavishness of their praise.

For Mr Trump, the flattery must be directly proportional to the scorn for which you are atoning. 

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