Perhaps we could breed Senator Thom Tillis (alleged R-NC) with Senator Mazie Hirono (D-uh) to produce a senatorial super-moron, a legislator so unbelievably stupid that it needs a constant reminder to breathe. But, upon reflection, Frankenstein-like experiments to create the ultimate moron might be amusing, but what we really need to do now is get rid of Thom Tillis. He needs to go. He needs to be gone. Republicans need to stop screwing around with pols like him. North Carolina Republicans, primary this jerk.
President Trump has to be nice and polite with this guy, at least for now, but I don’t. This guy is a loser, and he needs to get lost. He’s also, according to those who have paid attention to him, a bad person, but I don’t know if that’s true. He must be 86’d because he’s dumb, not because he’s a Machiavellian supervillain – he’s less Ernst Stavo Blofeld than Earnest P. Worrell-Blowhard.
Now, dumping a Republican incumbent is not my preferred outcome. My preferred outcome is that he does what his voters want, as opposed to what his rich friends out at the country club want, and then he gets reelected, barely, as he always does. But this is a guy with delusions of mediocrity, a ridiculous Tar Heel toff who somehow imagines himself as a statesman rather than a soldier in an army marching forward together to Make America Great Again. He really thinks that his thoughts are important. He really thinks that his ideas are significant. He really thinks he can make a difference, which he can, but only in the worst possible way.
This is the problem with far too many senators. Staffers and lobbyists cater to them, butter them up, smooch their Schumers, and some imagine that it’s because they are truly great men and women and non-binaries instead of just being the one filling a slot. They think they are leaders when, instead, their role is to be led by their voters, who expect them to do what the voters want rather than what might get the faux Cicero a tongue bath in the WaPo.
I would be fine with Tillis strutting about, furrowing his brow, imagining himself something more than a joke, as long as he voted right. But you can see he has that 2000s GOP instinct to fail. He tried to tank Pete Hegseth, rolling over at the last minute, and was all in with John Cornyn’s gun control scheme, but now he’s actually doing damage. He’s doing it in two ways. First, he’s disrespected the President and his own voters by opposing nominee Ed Martin as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. The President had to pull him. Ed, whom I know very slightly, has done a great job turning around that garbage office and converting it from a cesspool of oppression into a bastion of justice and accountability. That was probably the problem. Tillis was mad because Ed refused to abandon the J6 political prisoners, as Tillis did. That would be to his shame if the senator possessed the capacity for shame. Nothing offends his ilk more than the idea of dirty proles failing to show the appropriate respect for, and deference to, empty suits like himself. He’s never showed 1/1000th of his fussy, phony outrage over J6 for the BLM riots or the pro-Hamas campus pogroms; he reserves his ire for the personal insult he felt from conservatives demanding he do his job.
And he does the bare minimum of it. He shows up and votes, mostly the right way, but you can tell his heart’s not in it, that he’s always wanted to be the maverick who gets the high-five from the regime media for defying conservative voters. When some reporter files a story about how an anonymous Senate Republican is clutching his pearls and sobbing, “Oh well, I never!” over the latest Trump win, you just know that he’s the source, scribbling in the slam book in the shadows.
But the bigger problem than his tiresome Hamlet act whenever we need him to get on board is that he’s jeopardizing the seat. Because similarly treacherous Republicans like Brian Kemp and Chris Sununu have decided to put their own personal whims ahead of saving the country and not run in 2026, the seat he has his useless rear end planted in is now more important than ever. The problem is he has so alienated conservative voters that it’s not clear that they will show up in the general. He needs every single vote. He’s not a charismatic man. He reminds everybody of that guy who wants to be president of your HOA.
If the Democrats put up somebody who’s not a complete buffoon, they’re likely to beat our complete buffoon. North Carolina still elects Democrats. This was never going to be a slam dunk, but here comes dopey Thom Tillis, alienating his own base by being a squish and finally deciding that the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back is the United States Attorney gig in freaking Washington, DC. How dumb must you be to choose this hill to ritually sacrifice your career on?
We can talk all we want about how we have to close our eyes and think of England when we mark our ballots because a bad Republican is better than any Democrat, but eventually, conservative voters are going to wonder why they even bother. They might just not show. Who wants to spend the next six years seeing that goof on TV spewing out his Jeb!-friendly brand of gentlemanly decline management nonsense knowing that you voted for him?
He's already made a 180° turn and now tweets ultra-mega MAGA stuff in an effort scrape by but, judging by the input I solicited from his constituents, homeboy may have burned all his bridges with his shenanigans and guaranteed that he loses the general election. So, it’s time to think about a primary candidate. Mark Robinson, who got destroyed running for governor, demonstrated character and commitment by counting himself out of the Senate race in 2026, knowing he was almost certain to lose the seat. That leaves the question of who could beat Tillis in the primary. What about Lara Trump? Sadly, she’s not a resident. Others speak highly of Congressman Pat Harrigan, who holds a safe red House seat. But there has to be someone – I’d be happy with my dog Bitey, who has a better track record of legislative successes than Tillis and also understands loyalty.
There have to be some viable candidates. I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on North Carolina GOP politics, but I will offer you conservative vinegar–based barbecue aficionados this one piece of advice: Time to upgrade your senator.
