“Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ shocking retirement announcement Sunday reflects the real state of our politics, an example of how even the most competitive and best known swing states — places like North Carolina, that determine the presidency every four years — are infected by the same contagion as the most hardened one-party states. Amid our hyper-nationalized, hyper-polarized politics, any lawmaker seen as a moderate won’t last long, no matter what state they hail from.”
Tillis did not blindly support Trump; Trumped publicly attacked him and said he was looking for someone to replace Tillis; Tillis announced his retirement.
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“Purple state status doesn’t mean that the citizens are, by and large, more moderate than they are in other states, but rather than on average they resemble something approaching moderation. The truth is that purple states have very few purple voters; they simply have blue and red voters in roughly equal numbers.
In today’s nationalized political environment, those red and blue voters in purple states respond in the same uncompromising way to modern politics as they do in states dominated by the Democratic or Republican parties.”