Them review: Ben Sasse on Trump, America and how he's the man to fix it

The Nebraska senator, a critic of the president, makes an eloquent appeal for healing. His loyal voting record, however, counsels caution

Ben Sasse, Nebraska’s first-term junior senator, says Americans “hate each other”. Looking at the Kavanaugh hearings in the rearview mirror, one is tempted to say he is right.

Trumpism – like Brexit – is a harsh verdict on the supposed “end of history”, the death of ideology that never was. Six decades ago, lack of a college degree was a statement of fact, not a character flaw, and the world paid homage to those who brought home the bacon. Not any more. And yes, this development has real and potentially lasting consequences for American politics.

Along with race, gender and religious affiliation, educational attainment has emerged as one of the strongest predictors of political preference. In the process, our politics have become sulfurous. Enter Sasse’s latest book, Them.

Sasse is an Ivy League and Oxford-educated Republican who many think aspires to the presidency. He has published his thoughts before and he now offers his prescription for how America can “heal”. Among other things, he urges us to put political tribalism on the backburner, to rediscover “human-to-human relationships”, to seek out community and to love our neighbors. Suffice to say, all this is easier said than done.

We did not reach this point overnight. Rather, our journey to this precipice spans decades and is a consequence of modernity, technology and globalization, as Sasse acknowledges. Throw in a deep recession, the collapse of the housing and stock markets and a war gone bad, and American cohesion has gone out the window.

E pluribus unum? Not so much.

With the exception of the top third of society, rapid change has exacted a heavy price. According to Sasse, “America is being split into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, and the gap between them is growing.” According to CNN, there is a 30-point chasm between college graduates and non-college graduates on the generic congressional ballot.

As for mobility, “in a stark departure from the middle half of the last century – it’s increasingly difficult to move up.” Too many have been left behind. Goodbye American Dream, hello opioid-induced haze.

On top of discrepancies in life expectancy, Them catalogs other flashing red lights. Sasse notes that birth rates have dropped, that on society’s lower rungs pregnancy has been decoupled from marriage, and that marriage itself has morphed into a luxury item. To drive his point across, the senator lets the reader know that he sits at the desk used by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a liberal Democrat who chronicled the state of African American families under Richard Nixon.

Sasse could give greater context to these trends, but does not. After all, voter dissatisfaction is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Even before Donald Trump’s electoral college win, Britain was backing Brexit and Eurosceptics were flexing their muscle elsewhere. Not surprisingly, Sasse avoids drawing clear causal lines between immigration, stagnant wages, shuttered factories and Trump’s victory.

About that ambition. Before Sasse was elected to the Senate in 2014, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and served as one of the youngest university presidents at Midland University in his home state. He has since emerged as one of Trump’s sternest critics.

In December 2015, he trashed Trump as a would-be “megalomaniac strongman”. A month later, he announced that he would not vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton but would support a constitution-respecting conservative. He also sees Trump as a man who would be king, a view shared by Trump’s own supporters, albeit with a smile.

Since Trump became president, Sasse has challenged him on trade and immigration. As for special counsel Robert Mueller, Sasse says we are “really fortunate to have him leading this investigation”, an opinion probably not embraced by Trump or his minions. Bluntly, it’s hard to see Rudy Giuliani channeling Sasse’s enthusiasm for Mueller.

But this disdain for Trump has not caused Sasse to reassess how he votes in the Senate – that is, with the president more than 87% of the time. By the numbers, Sasse is even more loyal than Kentucky’s Rand Paul (75%) and Utah’s Mike Lee (81%). Even as he openly muses about leaving the GOP in an effort to salvage the good name of conservatism, he toes the Republican line.

Most recently, when it came to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation Sasse let the world know the DC judge was not his first choice. Then he voted him through.

The nomination shone a light on the tightrope Sasse must walk. So does his book. The senator recalls how Republicans refused to believe allegations of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore, their candidate in last year’s Alabama senatorial election, because they were first reported by the Washington Post and CNN.

These days, “who” does the reporting matters more than the actual content. “It isn’t just that living in ideological bubbles makes it harder to criticize one’s own side,” Sasse writes. “It’s also that it actually becomes harder to believe credible charges against one’s own tribe.”

By this yardstick, it would appear Sasse found Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony concerning Judge Kavanaugh somehow less than compelling.

On a positive note, Them forcefully expresses Sasse’s support for freedom of the press and religious liberty, a combination that appears in short supply elsewhere. Laudably, Sasse also refuses to demonize those on the other side of the aisle.

Sasse has kind words for Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. Specifically, he recounts commencement addresses in which the Brooklynite repeatedly lauds the value of work, family ties and community.

Sasse also delves into the impact of electronics on America’s adolescents, takes issue with identity politics and rejects demands for ideological conformity on college campuses.

But what makes Them worth the read is Sasse’s amalgam of realistic alarm and warning. In his words, “we are in a period of unprecedented upheaval. Community is collapsing, anxiety is building, and we’re distracting ourselves with artificial political hatreds.”

“That can’t endure” writes Sasse. “And if it does, America won’t.”