Trump critic Thom Tillis’ last chance to define himself as a moral and honorable leader

Rob Schofield, Nc Newsline
04 March
U.S. Sen Thom Tillis (R-NC) attends the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany February 14, 2025.

Compromise in politics is something that is as old as human civilization itself. Anyone who aspires to serve in an elected position understands this simple truth and the fact that, in many instances, compromise is an absolute requirement for those who want to stay in office.

Many are the well-meaning politicians down through the centuries who’ve legitimately pondered the question: How can I do the most amount of good — by standing on principle and risking some or all of the power and influence I have, or by compromising and living to fight another day?

Of course, for others, such questions never occur. These are the weak, corrupt and morality-challenged individuals who simply blow with the wind and say whatever they think will work to their personal advantage at all times. Anyone who has ever walked the halls of Congress or a state legislature for any length of time can readily spot these on-the-make individuals in both parties. They’re the ones to whom lobbyists for predatory industries and other slimy causes invariably turn to carry their bills and represent their snake oil claims.

But for most American politicians, there remains a wellspring of fundamental human decency — a floor below which they are unwilling to sink, along with some basic principles to which they will adhere, no matter what the cost.

North Carolina’s senior senator, Republican Thom Tillis, has always given the impression of being someone who fits — or at least aspires to fit — into the more honorable category.

Tillis has helped enact many arch-conservative policies through the years — several of which he no doubt truly believed in — but as anyone who’s ever watched or listened to the man speak in unscripted circumstances can attest, he’s not a fire breathing reactionary.

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage — thus overturning a state constitutional amendment he had helped enact as state House Speaker — Tillis spoke openly and publicly about the inevitability of the nation embracing marriage equality.

He’s also worked on and endorsed — before backing down to Trump, anyway — middle ground immigration reforms that would create paths out of the shadows for the millions of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants.

Most recently, there was Trump’s absurd nomination of former Congressman Matt Gaetz to serve as U.S. Attorney General. Tillis’s exasperated reaction to reporter questions made clear his obvious (and accurate) belief that Gaetz was a desperately unqualified scoundrel.

Now, however, thanks to Trump’s latest outrageous action — one of the most execrable and un-American deeds of any U.S. president in the nation’s history — Tillis (like several other Republican officials) has arrived a make-or-break moment.

After all, it’s one thing to disagree with your party’s leader about taxes, or the size of government, or even interpretations of the Constitution, and still remain allied. It’s quite another when that leader abandons two-and-a-half centuries of history as a global champion of democratic government and freedom and affirmatively aligns the United States with a committed opponent of both — the murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

President Donald Trump’s shameful attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — an act so low that former Republican and longtime New York Times columnist David Brooks rightfully described it in a national television appearance as nauseating and vile — demonstrated once and for all who and what Trump is.

Trump’s support of Putin is not an act of hardboiled realpolitik, nor as some have suggested derogatorily, appeasement of the kind British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he was practicing toward Hitler’s Germany prior to World War II.

Trump isn’t trying to control Putin, he’s affirmatively teaming up with the war criminal as a partner and as Brooks put it, working to “create a world a world that’s safe for gangsters.” He is, in short, betraying the most important things for which our nation has at least tried to stand for 250 years, and joining the other side.

And if this act doesn’t constitute a Rubicon moment for Tillis and other patriotic Republicans who’ve held their noses for so long at Trump’s serial dishonesty, megalomania and criminality, it’s hard to fathom what could possibly do so.

Tillis recently gave a passionate and impressive Senate speech in support of the Ukrainian cause, and he clearly seemed sincere. But there’s simply no way that any person with a measure of self-respect could give a speech like that, believe what he said, and still remain allied with someone like Trump and his Russian partner.

Sure, a break would be supremely difficult. A formidable Trump-backed primary opponent next year would be a sure thing. And thugs loyal to Trump might even make ominous threats as they have toward other politicians who’ve dared to cross their Dear Leader.

But as Tillis must also be acutely aware, if he backs down here and fails to back his words with action, he will have no chance of ever being taken seriously again or remembered as anything other than the Washington punchline he’s fast becoming. And what’s the point of being a senator in those circumstances, other than to cash a paycheck?

In short, Trump’s treachery has made Ukraine the defining issue of the moment — and maybe of our time. And it has provided Thom Tillis with what is likely his last chance to define himself as a moral and honorable leader.

NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com.

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