Them: Why We Hate Each Other - And How To Heal
Written and Narrated By: Ben Sasse
Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
A Second Review after a Second Listen—was hoping I missed calls for Unity… uhm… there are none here, and don’t look to Sasse for actions following brave words…
UPDATED Review following Insurrection at Capitol on 1/6/21:
I hope you were as horrified and sickened by what unfolded on tv and was streaming and tweeted when a mob, egged on by their president, smashed their way into a Capitol that hadn’t been breached since the War of 1812. Pleeeeeeease say you were!
And then I saw Ben Sasse’s words about a little man hiding behind his keyboard and dumping gasoline on a fire. NOT a direct quote, dunno what the exact words were, but I was thinking: YAY Sasse! and it had me remembering that I’d listened to his audiobook and remembered that it rubbed me the wrong way. Surely, thought I to myself now: I musta been too hard on him, here the guy is talking about not hating your neighbor, his book was a kinda sorta way to introduce the right to the left, etc etc blah blah blah I’ll give it a second listen cuz I’m SURE his heart and spine are in the right place blah… So I started and listened to THEM again, hoping to find words that unite, hoping Sasse, far more right-leaning than my sensibilities, but p’raps a voice of reason to be looked to despite differences, would be A Man of Honest Intentions Who Had Courage to Speak Truth in an era where I’ve seen a nation implode on itself.
Uhm, nope—He still casts blame on the left for starting all the vitriol, and his remarks that constituents in his state of Nebraska were saying they hated it but of course they HAD to vote for Trump in order to get judges so as to preserve (Who’s attacking your freedoms? Jeez, all you’re being asked to do is bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding!!!) their liberties and further their beliefs. CHILLING!!! You mean to tell me you’ll cozy up to a man who has no morality, no ethics, no empathy, and think THAT will save the soul of the nation? So I was riled again… and again… and again… as I listened to this. Sasse also shows an inCREDible lack of self awareness when he relates an incident where he was tense, worried, felt he’d been ignored and lashed out at a host at a restaurant. P’raps, Sir, could you capture that moment, and maaaaybe see that Black individuals might lash out over an entire history of being ignored (AT BEST) or murdered (OFTEN)? Would that make you a little bit more sympathetic to the BLM movement/the protests that were largely peaceful, but danged if people didn’t get a bit heated now and again (And NOBODY bashed a police officer’s brains in with a fire extinguisher so….)?
But I digress cuz I’m getting to the part that’s reeeally got me going. Despite all Sasse has said recently, and I mean soooo recently, and despite the fact that his words have gotten his constituents inflamed with a desire to cause him death and destruction, let’s just go with this: You Naysayers who think he’s a Never Trumper and a turncoat? You Yaysayers who think he’s got a spine and is willing to speak Truth? Well, I googled him, his past statements, and mostly his voting record. He’s not a Never Trumper because this Beacon of Truth, this Sermonizer of Brotherly Love has voted with Trump 84.8% of the time. This man who believes every child should be born voted to reject clean water and air that they might breathe. Voted for individuals who would separate families and put children in cages cuz they’re not White American children (Who also, I might add, don’t deserve adequate health care or education once they’re born). This man who’s a fiscal conservative voted to sink billions into a border wall, steal it from agencies, plus he voted a tax cut bill that BLEW UP the national debt BEFORE Covid when we desperately need room to help people struggling, suffering, flat out sick and dying. And God forbid anyone who’s been affected by opioid addiction cuz to Sasse, this lover of his Neighbor, they shouldn’t look to their nation for assistance, guidance, help cuz Sasse doesn’t think it’s a nation’s duty to help them (One of the FEW times Sasse voted against Trump.)
Noooooo my friend. Brave words will NEVER make up for craven and self-serving actions. The man, his constituents, got their bargain with the Devil—they got allll the judges they wanted and then some. But whazzis? The man who ran in 2016 on vilifying other humans due to race, religion, party affiliation SOMEhow became inflammatory? That 1/6/21 where gallows were erected and nooses dangled from them, where combat-clad rioters ran loose with zipties, where a free press was attacked was somehow a shock to them, to Sasse?
Yes, give THEM a listen to find out how far someone will go to sell their soul, what they’ll sell it for, what pact with the soulless they’ll make so that they might continue in their all-white communities where neighbor loved neighbor.
And for the love of GOSH! We’ve seen this ALL before: The words, the posturing, the speeches—the signs of someone who’s thinking of running for President, like this time, in 2024. Mr. Sasse got all the judges he could ever want. Let’s not let his current brave words (Which as of today 1/16/21 do NOT include outrage that promises consequences such as a definite vote of impeachment… oh you brave upstanding man, you!) keep us from seeing the actions of this man pulling levers behind the curtain. Go back to the constituents who elected you and Mr. Trump, Mr. Sasse.
Y’all deserve each other…
The ORIGINAL Review, posted 4/25/19 when first listened to:
A left-of-center woman listens to a right-wing kind of guy
I first heard Ben Sasse on NPR of all places, and I found him intelligent, amusing, incredibly insightful. And he’s coming from the right.
Sasse is proud of being one of the most conservative people in government today, but at least he appeared to be open-minded and not rabid: hence, my purchase of Them. In this audiobook, he does indeed give his opinion about why we’re all in such lousy moods lately and not feeling so kind towards one another. And I agree with a lot of what he has to say. I’m soooooo tired of both parties knee-jerk trashing each other, and as a person who feels a lot, feels it strongly, I’m soooooo tired of feeling bitter.
Sasse posits that loneliness is part of our issue, that we’re out of touch with each other, that we don’t socialize within our communities as much as in the past, and that we’re too tuned in to technology. Okay, I very much agree with that.
And thaaaaat’s where it pretty much stops.
He points to the confusion after the 2016 election, noting that the media is liberal and out of touch with the mainstream, truck-driving America that currently exists (“Trucks are the vehicles of choice in America, and how many in the liberal media even know someone who drives a truck, let alone drives one themselves?”
Hmmm… And oh hey? My SISTER drives a truck and she’s not currently favoring Trump and the far-right. …just saying… Confusing? I KNOW).
And he notes that fury of the people wasn’t something that Newt Gingrich fanned the flames of; rather, it started on the left, mostly Joe Biden when he was sort of considering a presidential run and made the Clarence Thomas hearings a hate-filled circus. Uhm, I think there were some issues that women in particular felt were very important in play there.
Sasse says that Americans who voted Trump in were forced to do that because their needs weren’t getting considered. Their religious freedoms were being trodden on by a Supreme Court that was saying abortion was okay, being gay was okay, and that, even if your religion strongly disagreed with said choices, said lifestyles, you still had to serve them if they came into your restaurant. And that’s baaaaad, he says. Of COURSE they had to vote Trump in. It was all about getting the proper judges onto the Supreme Court so that greater America’s religious freedom could be ensured (a scary thought given what’s happening now).
Am I ticking you off? Am I wearing my “radical left-wing elements” on my sleeve?
No, Mr. Sasse. I happen to be a part of America also. You say slavery was bad, but abolishment of slavery is what made America great. I happen to say that No, slavery was bad. And I’m not dreaming of a grand childhood in a close community when that community existed as a segregated environment, like your greater America misses.
I’ll give Sasse his due: at least he mostly walks his talk. He reaches out to the poor, he volunteers, his wife cares for the elderly, his family has mostly tech-free Sundays. But as much as he says the media is an isolated far-left entity, I posit that his greater America USED to be an isolated, segregated entity. Diversity has led to fear. THAT’S what made them vote for Trump: the wish to remain in that community, where only your close friends were your friends, and your neighbors were people who thought like you.
I didn’t get as aggravated listening to Them as much as, say, listening to Chesapeake Requiem because at least Mr. Sasse has some self-awareness, and he honestly, truly does wish for a more agreeable dialogue between the parties. He does think both parties engage in lower forms of vitriolic discourse. I just think he’s coming from a flawed pie-in-the-sky, entirely Caucasian background. I think it skews some of what he considers to be Truth, and Hope. Hope should embrace all of us, and I don’t think his greater America, who all drive trucks, really want to live next door to somebody who looks and thinks differently.
After all, any sort of bending means their religious freedoms are being stepped on. But now, as they’re refusing to bend, they’re very much afraid of breaking.
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