Ben Sasse: Strengths and Weaknesses
Political/Books
By Wade Lee Hudson
In Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How We Can Heal, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) affirms important values. Unfortunately, his politics contradict his values.
Sasse declares:
By working to secure for each of our countrymen and women the freedom from coercive power, we help to secure for every American the freedom to live lives of love, worshipping as we see fit, serving our neighbors, and pursuing happiness and friendship….
We share common interests and goals that are more important than just about any question of federal policy—chief among these goals, raising our children to be kind, thoughtful, gritty, respectful adults who use their skills and talents to serve others.
He acknowledges serious social problems, such as “persistent racism in our criminal justice system…, the breathtaking inefficiencies and inequities of our health-care system…, the haphazard funding of scientific research.” His primary concern is “the collapse of the local tribes that give us true, meaningful identity—family, workplace, and neighborhood.”
Our communities are collapsing, and people are feeling more isolated, adrift, and purposeless than ever before…. It has to do with the deep bonds that join people together, that give their lives richness and meaning—and the fact that those bonds are fraying…. It’s about the evaporation of social capital—the reservoir of relationships that help us navigate the world.
In his consideration of highly mobile individuals, he concludes that many are “eventually becoming so emotionally exhausted that they stop trying to invest at all in wherever they happen to be.”
He affirms limits on governmental power, cautions against a tyranny of the majority, and demonstrates some humility and flexibility when he writes:
Each group (progressives, conservatives, libertarians) interprets events differently and comes to different conclusions in no small part because it starts from a different guiding premise. Still, we can see that all three lenses spot different facets of reality—even if each has its own blind spots.
His communitarian proposals posit:
The only conceivable way we can make sense of all this information would be by knowing who to think with, who to trust…. What is wrong with us is exacerbated by technology, but it did not originate with technology…. We will have to find a way to restore the bonds of community that give individuals a place in the world where they can enjoy the love of family and friends, express their talents, and serve others in fulfilling ways….
What sustains people, really, is sharing a common cause, a common purpose—a sense of being in it together. People yearn to belong. They want to be part of a tribe, to have roots.
Referring to the observations of Alex de Tocqueville during his 19th century visit to America, he comments, “It was these ‘associations’ that oriented people toward ‘a common goal.’... Government, especially local government...was tasked with creating the space for these associations to form.”
Sasse criticizes universities that prohibit Christian student groups from selecting leaders based in part on whether they are commited to abstain from same-sex relationships. He considers this a (common) form of intolerance that violates individual freedom.
He sympathizes with Nebraskans who feel “condescended to by the national press” and observes that “anti-tribes…have cropped up to try to fill the void left by the collapse of the natural, local, embodied, healthy tribes people have traditionally known.” He sees this tribalism in Nebraska as well: “Constituents are rarely just interested in solutions; they’re also interested in assigning blame.”
His solution is more community, rooted in “America’s history of principled pluralism.”
Only a recovery of rootedness can heal us…. As Americans, we need to agree first on the universal dignity of all people…. We’re lacking...the right bonds that give our lives meaning, happiness, and hope. It’s the habits of heart and mind that make us neighbors and friends. At the end of the day, it’s love. And when a bunch of “them” are joined by love, and by purpose, “they” can become “we.”
On a more personal level, he demonstrates the potential for mutual support.
In 1999, five years after college, some buddies and I decided to push back on the transience in our lives… The six of us committed to assembling for a few days each year to laugh, to eat and drink, to update each other on our lives, and most important, to hold each other accountable to certain goals in life. We talk about work aplenty when we’re together, but that’s not the focus. The goals we’re mainly interested in are personal. How can we be better parents and spouses? How can we grow in character?....
These cultural reflections and his stories about the need to serve people in need are sensible. But when he talks about politics, he loses his clarity—both in what he says and what he does not say. He also seems to forsake his honesty. “This book is not going to be about politics,” he declares early on. But the whole book is political. It reads like a campaign memoir.
IIn one section, Sasse offers a superficial explanation of “who is responsible for the extreme polarization that now plagues our national politics.” He objects to those who say Newt Gingrich and Republicans are primarily to blame for having introduced “rage politics” when they took control of the House in 1995, leading the country onto a downward spiral. Sasse argues that Gingrich’s “energetic coalition” did not appear out of nothing. “He was tapping into an angry constituency that was already there. So who was that base? And why were they angry?”
Sasse traces this anger to “conservative anxiety” following the rejection of Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. He blames “liberal” opposition to Bork for today’s polarization. But he does not really evaluate why the opposition to Bork was so intense. The wikipedia reports: “Opposition to his nomination centered on his stated desire to roll back the civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts and his role in the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre.”
During the Watergate scandal. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork complied, which betrayed a deference to Presidential power and a lack of respect for Justice Department independence—hardly qualities needed in a Supreme Court justice.
Moreover, another factor for the opposition to Bork is that prior to the Reagan presidency, Supreme Court nominations were largely consensus candidates, broadly endorsed and approved by overwhelming majorities in the Senate. But Reagan was trying to move the Court in a more ideological direction. After supporting the nomination of Anthony Scalia, Democrats decided to oppose this effort.
Sasse is a historian. He knows this history. For him to ignore it when he explores the roots of today’s polarization seems dishonest. It certainly contradicts his claim to avoid politics.
Another superficial Republican talking point endorsed by Sasse is his affirmation of the so-called “Success Sequence” as the best way to alleviate poverty. He writes:
The path to social and economic flourishing (is):…
Finish high school
Get a job. (Any job. Because working leads to more working, which leads to better jobs.)
Get married before having children.
When people follow this pattern—and crucially, in this order—life generally turns out pretty well…. If you follow the Success Sequence you won’t be poor.
This absolute assertion is clearly absurd. Sasse contradicts it himself when he acknowledges, “This is not to deny that economic-structural issues (such as the evaporation of coal and industrial jobs) have contributed to the cultural breakdown we are observing.” Placing total responsibility on the individual violates Sasse’s appreciation for the importance of community.
Brain Alexander in the July 31, 2018 Atlantic, argues that the Success Sequences merely
traces a path that people already likely to succeed usually walk. It serves to stigmatize out-of-wedlock births and ignores well-known impediments, including:
a lack of marriageable men who earn decent wages in some communities, high incarceration rates, the decline of union power, and a general feeling that there’s little point to waiting to have a child because there’s little hope for ever really improving one’s lot.
With its emphasis on personal responsibility, the Success Sequence neglects society’s responsibility to assure access to the means to make ends meet. “The sequence in truth amounts to just one item: Have a decent job, and you won’t live in poverty.” Nevertheless, the idea is “used to justify all sorts of inequities.”
Again, Sasse knows this. He admits it. But he still says the Success Sequence is “the” path to economic flourishing and claims it guarantees the avoidance of poverty. This inconsistency is another indication of apparent dishonesty.
Probable disingenuousness is also reflected in Sasse’s empty embrace of “small government.” He writes, “Government exists to preserve and protect those (individual) rights—the rights that you have by virtue of your dignity as a human being….Limited government is not the same as small government. (I’m in favor of both, by the way).” “Small government” is a meaningless platitude. Does he oppose Social Security and Medicare? Those are large programs. Does he oppose the Earned Income Tax Credit for working families and childcare subsidies? Only the federal government has the resources to distribute those funds. Does he consider those examples “big government”? I doubt it. So I don’t really believe that he’s in favor of “small government.” That may be an effective campaign slogan with Republican voters, but if Sasse were serious about healing polarization, he would discuss issues honestly rather than throw divisive labels.
A more subtle contradiction in Sasse’s book is that, on the one hand, he affirms community, but on the other, he affirms hyper-individualism. Sasse writes, “Our national experiment is about defending the individual, with his or her inexhaustible dignity,… Individual rights exist prior to government.” But individuals do not exist prior to their parents, who do not exist prior to the community, and in a democracy, the government is a voice of the community, its agent, acting to secure everyone’s right to have what’s required to be free—the means to make ends meet financially and the opportunity to participate in society as full and equal members of compassionate communities. The individual and the community are mutually dependent. Sasse wants “to secure for every American the freedom to,” but in today’s world that freedom is limited because many individuals are unable to participate fully in society. In Sasse’s worldview, individuals are essentially on their own, pehaps with a supportive family. He undermines his communitarianism.
The most important problem with Sasse’s politics, however, is seen in his discussion of his encounter with college football. As a passionate Nebraska fan, at one point he realized, “The problem was when ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Nebraska’ became irreconcilable categories—when I failed tco see that they both were also part of an overarching category: America.” That nationalism overlooks a deeper category: humanity.
We all belong to the human family. Sasse’s Christian faith calls us to love everyone, but he limits his focus to America. The Christian imperative calls America to cooperate with other nations, rather than try to dominate them. Sasse does not affirm service to the common good of all humanity, which is an urgent imperative.
Sasse’s philosophical conservatism affirms important values, but his doctrinaire political conservatism contradicts those values. When it comes to economics and politics, his logical thinking falls by the wayside. He laments “anti-tribalism”—tribes based on opposition—but his politics is blindly anti-,anti-government.
Sasse claims he wants to help heal polarization. Whether or not he really does, there’s no way for a reader to know. But his shoddy logic indicates he’s not committed to that goal, He seems to be another politician shaping what he says for the sake of personal ambition. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that he reinforces the polarization he laments. Building unity in this nation awaits a different voice, one that affirms valid “conservative” values without forsaking them.