Thom Tillis has chosen his path on Trump. It’s the wrong one for NC | Opinion

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis has faced a difficult choice as his reelection grows nearer: be the independent thinker he’s long said he would be, or fall in line behind President Donald Trump.

We’d hoped he might at least try to thoughtfully navigate the moral conundrums of a second Trump presidency, despite the political risk he would incur by doing so. But as the days go by, it’s become increasingly clear that Tillis has chosen his path, and it’s not the right one.

As it turns out, Tillis isn’t particularly interested in challenging Trump’s extreme agenda. He’s done little to push back against dangerous and unqualified Cabinet nominees, and performed a flip-flop for the ages when he voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary after reportedly telling colleagues he would oppose Hegseth the day before.

Now, he doesn’t seem bothered by Trump and Elon Musk’s all-out assault on the federal government, even though it may be illegal. Tillis apparently does believe Musk might be at risk of overstepping his authority and encroaching on congressional spending power, but he’s shrugged his shoulders at the thought of doing anything about it.

According to one report, Tillis acknowledged that what Musk is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense” — but said “nobody should bellyache about that.”

That’s a mindboggling comment from a sitting U.S. senator who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. But Tillis seems bound by a different kind of loyalty: loyalty to Trump, and his party above all else.

According to another report, Tillis thinks Musk may be “wading into areas that may be congressional authority,” but dismissed it as merely a “disruptive thought process” that has “practical limits.”

One would hope that those “practical limits” would be the constitutional authority of Congress to hold Trump and Musk accountable. The problem with Tillis’ position is that he seems to think that some mysterious force or power will keep Trump and Musk from going too far — when in fact it is his job as a member of Congress to prevent them from doing just that. One must also wonder: what, exactly, does Tillis define as ‘too far’? How many more precedents must be shattered in order for Tillis to acknowledge this is not politics as usual?

Unfortunately, Tillis doesn’t seem to be particularly receptive to criticism from those who’d like him to choose differently. When asked recently about concerns that he could be too amenable to Trump, Tillis opted to turn the issue around on Democrats instead.

“In the last Democratic administration, which [nominees] did they even raise a concern [about]? Zero. Like, zero. So it’s disingenuous. It’s the same old, tired playbook,” Tillis told Semafor.

Of course, that completely misses the point. No senator is expected to oppose a nominee who is competent and qualified just for argument’s sake. If Joe Biden had nominated a defense secretary with a history of sexual assault and dubious views about women in combat, or a health secretary who is an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist, Democrats would have had the same moral obligation to oppose them.

Further evidence of his defensiveness came Wednesday when he issued a biting retort to a former Republican congressman (and staunch Trump critic) who criticized Tillis after he posted a photo of himself and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard on social media.

“Has this guy always been this angry or is this what being a paid CNN and MSNBC contributor does to a washed-up former Congressman?” Tillis wrote.

Really? Does Tillis think that verbally sparring with Trump’s enemies on social media will win him points with the president, or is he just that bad at accepting criticism?

It’s clear Tillis has made his decision. It’s the same decision he made when he ran for reelection in 2020. For all of his faults, he is politically savvy, and he knows to choose the path that will cost him the least number of voters. It might be the right path for his political career, but it’s almost certainly the wrong one for North Carolina.