Sen. Tillis is kissing Trump's feet
There’s no such thing as a self-made dictator. It takes more than a village to make one. Lawmakers and judges must cooperate or get out of his way. Citizens must accept that it’s all for the good or will soon pass by. That’s what happened not so long ago to new democracies in Italy, Germany and Russia.
And now it’s America’s turn.
Donald Trump didn’t stop on Day One, as he had falsely promised. He’s purging the government of anyone who might be more submissive to the Constitution then to him. He’s populating it with fellow fascists and treating the economy as if it were just another name-branded casino to bankrupt.
The Supreme Court has already given him a license to break any law. Where is Congress, it’s time to wonder, while he claims the right to ignore its appropriations, fire inspectors general, ransack the Justice Department and FBI, promise lavish buyouts to the entire federal work force, censor state school curriculums, appoint dangerously unqualified Cabinet officers and deny birthright citizenship despite the 14th Amendment?
Where is the outcry over his expressed ambition for an unconstitutional third term? For North Carolinians, the question gets very local: where is Sen. Thom Tillis in all this?
It’s a timely one because he’s up for election again next year and he’s plainly terrified of nothing but primary opposition from the right. There’s one Republican opponent already, but it’s Democrat Roy Cooper whom he should worry about. Had Tillis voted as wisely and bravely as Sens. Lia Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, Pete Hegseth wouldn’t be the first secretary of defense for whom there should be a breathalyzer beside the red phone.
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But Hegseth’s affinity for alcohol isn’t the worst of it. He has no experience to qualify him for managing something so large, costly and essential as the Department of Defense. Running his mouth on Fox “News” doesn’t cut it. The spiteful retaliation he immediately took against retired Gen. Mark Milley, stripping him of his security detail and threatening his fourth star, shows how wrong Tillis’ vote was.
As it took the vice president to break a tie, every “yes” vote was decisive but Tillis’ was the most conspicuous. He had virtually promised to vote no. The Wall Street Journal disclosed that he had coaxed Hegseth’s ex sister-in-law to testify about his alcohol and spousal abuse by implying it would swing three votes including his own. It wasn’t the first dive Tillis took for Trump. Six years ago, he spoke against and even wrote a Washington Post op-ed opposing the emergency Trump declared to begin the border wall. When it came time to vote, though, there was Tillis, flat on his face at Trump’s feet.
At this writing, the Senate has yet to vote on three more Trump nominees who are as bad or worse than Hegseth. People reading this might be dead today if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been able to persuade the FDA to withdraw its approval of the COVID-19 vaccine. He said nothing to two Senate committees other than to prove that no crackpot like him belongs in charge of the nation’s health agencies.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s mind-blowing nominee for intelligence chief, said nothing to put a gloss on her coziness with the Russian czar Vladimir Putin and the former Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Asad. She had also tried to get Edward Snowden off the hook for leaking government documents that exposed U.S. intelligence methods and sources.
Kash Patel, a veteran Trump hatchet man, is utterly unqualified to lead the FBI. He’d be there simply to purge and prosecute anyone who had ever taken part in trying to hold Trump accountable to the law or might dare to try again.
I would be delighted for Tillis to surprise me by voting against those people. If only he would look in the mirror to see a hero instead of a MAGA hat.
It’s the nature of most presidents, like kings, to crave ever more power. That’s why the Constitution gave Congress the authority — and the duty — to hold the executive in check. It’s what Benjamin Franklin had in mind when he famously advised a fellow citizen that the Constitutional Convention had proposed “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
My correspondence with Tillis about Hegseth and other issues has been depressing. He seems to think his duty now is to do whatever Trump wants because “The American people delivered a clear message that they want the country to move in a new direction by electing Donald Trump as president.”
That message wasn’t nearly as clear as Tillis pretends, since Trump didn’t break 50% of the vote. But the new direction, at least, is unmistakable. It’s toward dictatorship.
(Martin A. Dyckman is a retired journalist who lives in Western North Carolina. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
