In one of the most hotly contested and discussed races, as well as?the?most funded United States Senate race of all time, Republican Thom Tillis pulled out a win against the incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan.
As a resident of North?Carolina I have to question the sanity of our voters. Sure, this turnout was very?high compared to other midterms, but the percentage of voter turnout still only hovered around the 50% mark. And yes, there are more registered Democrats in our state than Republicans. But Tillis won regardless so who are these people that voted for him? What issues were key to them?
Thom Tillis’ record of public “service” is an atrocious one. He was most recently our state’s Speaker of the House and oversaw what became a legislature that made national headlines and not for good things.
Tillis brags about his love of life, so of course he passed a law closing most clinics that provide abortion. His love of life must end at the womb because he also blocked Medicaid expansion which denied up to 500,000 North Carolinians access to health insurance.
Tillis signed some of the most restrictive voting requirements in modern history. Not only will these restrictions make it harder for young people and minorities to obtain the neccesary documents required to vote, it will ensure longer voting lines. Because of these laws, NC made national news on MSNBC, CNN, and more as a state that seemed to be headed backwards.
Throughout this entire campaign, including the ads, the televised debates and more, I have not heard much about what Tillis would do as United States Senator. He trashed Kay Hagan for supporting our President, as if himself or other Republicans have wavered from their party so often. He has criticized Kay and Obama’s lack of leadership on foreign policy, yet he cannot name one thing he would do as a political leader; he has no clue whether he would vote to authorize troops in troubled ISIS areas like Iraq and Syria.
As a sister of a public school teacher, I know that North Carolina under Republican leadership has been very bad for public education. His legislature slashed education spending yet he constantly touted this new teacher pay raise. This raise, (FYI) Mr. Tillis, is a joke to many teachers and would barely affect them in any substantial way financially. Our public schools are failing our kids and I have yet to find one person who would disagree. Our ‘Moral Monday’ protests have also made national news as our state’s voters seemed to be outraged at the politicians?in Raleigh. We have had large protests in the capitol as well as the state’s largest city of Charlotte, and cities and towns across the state. The aforementioned issues were supposedly very important to us and we demanded a change! Yet, Tillis won?
And Thom Tillis is not just a bad politician, but seemingly holds repugnant personal views. He has stated that African-Americans already receive a form of reparations in the form of public assistance like welfare. Not only is this extremely offensive, the social programs we have now are ?not race-based. But you know what was? Slavery. So citing non-race-based programs like welfare as reparations for race-based slavery is ludicrous at the least.
He must also have forgotten that whites receive the most public assistance. So they are receiving “reparations” as well. My only question then would be, “for what?”
I have personally written to his office numerous times and each response I received was pathetic. They lacked empathy, genuineness, competency and anything I would look for in a politician.
I cannot understand why voters went to the polls yesterday and voted for this man. What exactly do they support? Anti-women policies? Those that hurt poor people and the middle class as well? Racist views? Sadly, I think a lot of people do. Some pundits speculated that NC’s recent judicial ruling allowing marriage equality helped turn out Tillis supporters, as he is obviously anti-equality. If this is true, I am ashamed. The blocs of voters that want to take our country backwards where there is less equality, less opportunity, and less tolerance, just elected a terrible politician. As a lifelong North Carolina citizen, I have rarely been so disappointed in the place I call home.
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