Ben Sasse's Career Is The Music Man Directed by Roger Corman
Assuming that the rotted husk of the institutional Republican Party doesn't simply dry up and blow away on the wind, as god and nature clearly intend for it to do at the moment, somebody is going to have to run for president in 2024. This is going to require a heroic effort to make the four—or eight—years of El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago disappear down the spider home of memory, much the same way the Bush years did through the diligent work of a well-funded Tea Party.
Whoever runs in 2024, and assuming that the GOP remains intact, is going to have to thread a needle's eye—that person is going to have to deplore this president*'s obvious racism and malfeasance in office without completely offending the party's lunatic base which, I guarantee you, is going to be looking for The Next Trump, and is not going to be satisfied with anyone who doesn't stroke their angry, racist G-spot until the angels weep. It's going to be such a tough job that people are starting to maneuver for it right now.
In related news, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska is running for re-election. From the Omaha World-Herald:
Flanked by high ranking Republicans, U.S. Senator Ben Sasse kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign. “That’s what is at stake in 2020: a choice between civics and socialism,” Sasse said. At a campaign kickoff event Monday, Sasse said he will continue to fight for limited government, border security, agriculture and pro-life policies. He said most everything else should be left to the state.
“I don’t believe that most problems in the world are policy problems. Most problems in the world are neighborly problems, and church problems, and community problems,” he said. “We have a surging racial hatred online of people willing to kill because they don’t understand the American idea,” Sasse said. “That is a crisis that we have to solve by teaching (the American idea) to the next generation, not solve it in Washington D.C.”
If Young Ben Sasse ever had a sincere moment, it died of loneliness.
He has been the most insufferable of them—those Republicans who are Deeply Troubled every time the president* acts like a racist maniac and then vote in lockstep with him on practically everything, only to become Deeply Troubled again a few months later. Even Susan Collins of Maine isn't as bad. Occasionally, she will vote her conscience. Young Ben Sasse only wants to shine his up and put it on display, hoping that the glare will blind people to the fact that, yes, he's voting to take away their healthcare, and that, yes, he's putting another larval Scalia on the federal bench.
“I don’t believe that most problems in the world are policy problems. Most problems in the world are neighborly problems, and church problems, and community problems."
Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who the hell is this guy when he's at home? If banality were currency, Young Ben Sasse would be an ATM. But this has been his riff ever since he got into politics. We don't make our kids bale enough hay, or read enough de Tocqueville, or chop enough cotton, and that's why everything's gone to hell in an ox-cart ever since the band gazebo burned down. Young Ben Sasse's political career has been a production of The Music Man directed by Roger Corman.
“We have a surging racial hatred online of people willing to kill because they don’t understand the American idea,” Sasse said. “That is a crisis that we have to solve by teaching (the American idea) to the next generation, not solve it in Washington D.C.”
That's right. American history would've taken a brighter turn had Dr. King stayed in Birmingham and read The Federalist Papers from the pulpit, instead of coming all the way to Washington to demand from the people's government the rights that government had been designed to protect. And if all these problems are not Washington problems, why in the hell is Young Ben Sasse going to spend millions of dollars to go back there for six more years? Stay home, Ben. Bake something nice for the Kiwanis.
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