Today there was a twist in my troubleshooting
This morning I had more issues, I smacked the lower dash and the blower came on just fine. After lunch I removed the under dash cover to started digging into troubleshooting and I could not get the blower motor to work regardless of what I did. Wiggling the wires or smacking it did not do a thing.
I inspected the wires carefully and none smelled or looked burnt.
I wiggled the wires all over and the blower never came on.
I used a multimeter to trace voltage all the way up to blower motor which was confusing because the blower motor would totally work fine once it was on. It looks like if you smack the blower motor directly or give it a spin to get it to start it will turn.
I put the old blower resistor into the Tahoe and same behavior happened where I had to mess with the blower motor to get it to start.
Everything is pointing to the blower motor itself now.