Them: Why We Hate Each Other - And How To Heal
Written and Narrated By: Ben Sasse
Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
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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