Being humiliated not once but twice by the Washington Post to end the year wasn’t enough for Senator Tillis. He had to start 2020 by humiliating himself, posting a cringe-worthy plea for birthday wishes for the president’s adult son that was wildly mocked by reporters, historians, former columnists, and his hometown paper – and earned a staggering 80 times more comments than endorsements online:

Tillis’ hometown paper, the Charlotte Observer, blasted him for being a “party planner” right at “a time when we’d like our members of Congress to position themselves as a thoughtful check on any president’s action.”

The paper also revealed the deeper issue: “It’s also a sign to North Carolinians that as we turn the calendar to 2020, we have a clear choice ahead… Do we want a senator so consumed with currying favor from Donald Trump that he embarrasses himself and the state he represents?”

The negative responses didn’t stop there. Reporters and columnists noted that it’s “not going well,” said that the “shamelessness is stunning,” blasted Tillis as “unworthy of public service,” mocked it as a “perfectly dignified thing for a U.S. Senator to be doing,” and declared Tillis as a “sad little man.”

2020 is off to a great start.

Charlotte Observer: Editorial: Thom Tillis’ birthday blunder embarrasses NC
By the Editorial Board
January 6, 2020

Key Points:

• There’s nothing wrong with sending someone a happy birthday wish, public or private. So why did Thom Tillis’ acknowledgment of Eric Trump’s 36th birthday Saturday elicit some social media groaning?

• It could be that the senator from North Carolina didn’t merely wish the president’s son a happy birthday. Tillis invited Americans to “add your name” to a birthday card for Trump that “we’re putting together,” he said in a tweet. That birthday card, which declared the president’s son an “American Patriot” and said “We’re so thankful for Eric Trump’s work in fighting for America,” was an unusually public and intimate gesture for a U.S. Senator to make for a member of the president’s family.

• It could be the timing of the gesture that prompted some eye-rolling. At a moment… when we’d like our members of Congress to position themselves as a thoughtful check on any president’s action — Tillis was acting more like a party planner.

• So while it’s disappointing, it’s not unexpected that Tillis, like other Republicans, is declining to push for evidence to back up Trump’s assertion that Suleimani posed an imminent threat to U.S. interests.

• But soliciting Americans to sign a birthday card for Donald Trump’s son? It showed a troubling lack of distance between a U.S. senator and a president, one that surely had some of Tillis’ fellow Republicans wincing, too. It’s also a sign to North Carolinians that as we turn the calendar to 2020, we have a clear choice ahead. Do voters want a U.S. senator who understands that it is sometimes his or her uncomfortable duty to question a president, especially one who so regularly threatens constitutional boundaries and historical norms? Or do we want a senator so consumed with currying favor from Donald Trump that he embarrasses himself and the state he represents?

PoliticsNC: A Sad Little Man
By Thomas Mills
January 6, 2020

Key Points:

• I suspect that at some point, Thom Tillis had a modicum of self-respect. I also suspect that those days are long forgotten. Today, he debases himself regularly trying to stay in the good graces of the con man in the White House.

• Tillis, though, has lost any sense of dignity so he’s also lost the capacity to be embarrassed. In his narrow little mind, he’s convinced himself that his tweet will draw favor from the president. What a pathetic view of oneself.

• Tillis, of course, stands for nothing. Last March, he began a transformation from a centrist Senator who bragged about working across the aisle to a Trump toady matched only by Lindsay Graham. The pivotal event was an op-ed Tillis wrote gently criticizing Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build his border wall. When the president expressed his dissatisfaction, Tillis flip-flopped and voted for a senate resolution supporting the measure. Since then, he’s done all he can to curry favor with Trump, debasing himself regularly and showing no independence.

• Tillis has so wrapped himself up in his political identity, he’s forgotten who he was. He got involved in politics to get more bike paths in Cornelius. Just fifteen years later, he’s the US Senator from North Carolina who will do or say essentially anything to curry favor with Donald Trump. His rapid rise in power is proportional to the rapid demise of his self-respect. What a pathetic trade off and what a sad little man.