Thom Tillis’s dissent from Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” ending with his announcement that he will not seek re-election to his Senate seat in North Carolina, is intriguing.

A self-described moderate conservative, he finds himself a political dinosaur along with Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and others who lurk in the Senate corridors complaining about President Trump, all the while voting for his proposals. The affair says much about the Republican Party.

For instance, Tillis and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against moving the legislation forward, but for entirely different reasons. Tillis sees the carnage that Medicaid cuts will make in North Carolina and has sounded the alarm. Paul is aghast at the price tag and the accompanying debt. As with his House colleague, Thomas Massie, Paul takes a libertarian position, arguing that government has a limited role in public affairs and wants to reduce its involvement. It is simply understandable and clear.

In contrast, Tillis’s position is practical, as he says, based not on a political paper, Project 25, but on the realities that such actions will have on people. Medicaid, he argues, is the lifeblood of rural hospitals and a safety net for poorly insured clients. And, he is joined by MAGA stalwarts like Josh Hawley of Missouri, who argue that the GOP was more working class than before Trump and see this moment as an opportunity to solidify the President’s appeal to what had been a Democratic constituency. But at least Hawley is clear, unequivocal and instructive. The moderates are less so.

Indeed, the so-called RINOS are all over the lot. Mitch McConnell and Joni Ernst manage to weaken their positions by snarly comments that Medicaid recipients will “get over it” and the other that hints that death is inevitable. I guess “get over it”, again. At least Paul, Massie, and Hawley are serious; the others are robotic. In almost every case with the “moderate” GOPers, they say nothing and they really mean it. One is engaged in a serious debate, and others look at the polls and set their course.

Elon Musk has a point when he notes that the government still subsidizes antiquated industries and ignores the deficit, which it raises, amounting to three to five trillion dollars, depending on the estimates. It gives useless tax breaks to billionaires, which they will give back, or not. This is another stimulus package on top of the COVID-19 stimulus, the 2017 Stimulus, the Joe Biden stimulus, and now, this newer version. The name of the game is political self-preservation, a purely cynical calculation.

Perhaps Trump would be better advised to rethink his strategy of backing a bill that Musk predicts will sink the GOP. It is the worst merging of practicality, tea party rhetoric, and faux populism. It is a Christmas tree bill that has gifts under the tree that please few and thrill no one. Add the tariffs on top, and you are perilously close to the 1930s.

Indeed, as Barry Goldwater stated in 1964, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”