EDITORIAL: The coward Thom Tillis

US Sen. Thom Tillis does not have the courage to represent North Carolina in the Senate.

He is, at best, audacious — for it takes audacity to pen an op-ed in the Washington Post and then pull a complete 180 two weeks later, when it came time to vote.

But that’s exactly what he did.

At the time, Tillis-watchers thought the WaPo editorial was a rare straight shot from the sometimes mercurial senator, who won his seat in 2014 by upsetting incumbent Kay Hagan — a campaign in which, it should be noted, Tillis paid $345,000 to Cambridge Analytica, the digital data firm banned from Facebook after creating a “psychological warfare tool,” according to a whistleblower, to help elect Trump.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Tillis’ editorial concerned Trump’s “national emergency” at the border, necessitating executive action to build his stupid freakin’ wall. And Tillis wasn’t having it.

“Republicans need to realize that this will lead inevitably to regret when a Democrat once again controls the White House, cites the precedent set by Trump, and declares his or her own national emergency to advance a policy that couldn’t gain congressional approval,” he wrote on Feb. 25, which isn’t even the best reason to oppose Trump’s wall, but seems a logical and unassailable argument against allowing government overreach with winks and nods.

The vote came down last week, on March 14, when the Senate had an opportunity to vote on a House-passed resolution disapproving of Trump’s “national emergency” gambit.

Tillis voted against the resolution of disapproval, saying, “A lot has changed over the last three weeks.”

Here’s what changed:

Trump got back from Vietnam and, after freaking out about the Michael Cohen mess, began maniacally tweeting about the Senate vote. State GOP operatives began openly questioning his loyalty, and even floated names — Reps. Mark Walker and Mark Meadows — of the people they planned to primary him with.

And so he caved. Because that’s what cowards do.