**POLITICS BREAKING**

POLITICS BREAKING

History Buffs Spot ‘1984 Repeat’ in Tillis Amendment: ‘It’s the Tobacco Sting All Over Again’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Political historian Dr. Elena Vance went viral Tuesday after comparing Senator Thom Tillis’s (R-NC) latest digital privacy bill to the infamous “Tar Heel Tobacco Trap” of 1798.

“He’s doing it,” Vance posted on X. “Tillis is pulling a ‘Butler’s Bluff’ — offering a sugary olive branch while the men with the writs are waiting in the alley. The ‘Commerce Clause Carpetbagger’ is back.”

The comparison sparked a frenzy on Capitol Hill.

For context, in the late 18th century, North Carolina Federalist Col. Ezra Butler promised struggling planters a “soft tax” on tobacco storage in exchange for a minor registry of their barns. Two months later, those lists were used by Alexander Hamilton’s revenue agents to seize 40% of the state’s cured leaf.

“Tillis just proposed an amendment that supposedly ‘protects’ user data from the government,” Vance explained in a follow-up. “But buried in the fine print is a requirement for all social media platforms to hand over ’transactional metadata’ to a newly formed ‘Digital National Guard.’ History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme with a tobacco warehouse used as a tax dragnet.”

The Tillis camp fired back, calling the analogy “creative fiction.”

“This isn’t a Tar Heel tax trap, it’s modern patriot protection,” a spokesperson said. “Senator Tillis is a student of history, not a repeat of it.”

But the internet is not convinced. #TillisTarheel is already trending. The bill goes to committee at 10 a.m., with history buffs watching like hawks.