The free world, a term which covers a significant portion — varying from time to time in its dimensions — of these United States, has taken note of the bold stand pursued by U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who this week rebelled against the sheepish instincts of his fellow Republicans in their support of Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”
Declaring that, among other things, the bill would drastically undercut the protections extended to the populations of his and other states with severe cuts in Medicaid funding, Tillis publicly declared his opposition to the bill. Knowing that this would land him on Trump’s burgeoning enemies list and ensure that he would face a primary challenge from a Trump acolyte in his reelection bid next year, Tillis went further and, even before the president called for such a thing, said he wouldn’t be running.
An independent streak apparently runs in the Tillis family. The senator’s brother, Rick Tillis, a Lewisburg jeweler and a political moderate like the senator, was for two terms a Republican state representative from District 92 in the Tennessee legislature and ascended to the office of majority whip. But he had difficulty suppressing his sense of anguish at the authoritarian instincts evinced by Glen Casada, the GOP’s house speaker in the 2019 legislative term.
Representative Tillis began operating an anonymous Twitter account entitled “The C.H.B. Blog” (for “Cordell Hull Building Blog”), which mercilessly satirized the speaker’s repressive tactics, including Casada’s clandestine snooping measures against the chamber’s members.
So heavy-handed was Casada’s regime that he was ousted as speaker by his fellow Republicans in the immediate aftermath of that 2019 session, and Tillis’ Twitter barbs had been instrumental in that outcome.
There was payback. A pool of urine was subsequently discovered in one of Tillis’ office chairs, and it was alleged, but never proved, that the donor had been a Casada loyalist.
And Representative Tillis was defeated for reelection in 2020, thanks largely to unusually well-funded support for his primary opponent, largely channeled via a mystery consulting firm called Phoenix Solutions.
In a recent postscript of sorts to the affair, Casada and various others were recently convicted of illegal activities related to the firm, where the former speaker had been a silent partner.
It remains to be seen what degrees of vengeance might end up being leveled at Thom Tillis for his act of apostasy toward Donald Trump, especially since the senator is no longer a candidate for reelection. But the president has long since demonstrated that he is without peer in his zeal for exacting retribution.
Like his brother in Tennessee, however, the senator from North Carolina is clearly unafraid of bullies. It would seem to be a family thing.