As of the guy’s consituents, I’m willing to say that Sasse talks a good game and does exactly fuck all in practical terms to prevent Trump’s destruction of the national confidence in our public institutions. He’s a party man through and through who would dearly like to be thought an iconoclast, because that idea is gratifying to his ego. Most infuriatingly, he’s openly contemptuous of the very idea of politics. In most fields, taking every opportunity to say in public that you believe that the field in which you earn your living is an utter waste of time would get your ass fired. But Nebraska Republicans are masters of cognitive dissonance.
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What a sales pitch. “Government is dysfunctional and wastes all of your tax money. Give us control so we can prove it!”
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As long as Walmart has it on sale and they have a coupon.
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Thanks! That’s why most of us show up here, to learn stuff, and now I have some data points on the guy. I don’t think many people here find it possible to trust or respect anyone in the GOP at the national level by now, and we’ve come by that opinion honestly. There’s no place but the Democrats any more for a decent human being who wants to help people by working in government. Thanks again.
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Of course, for “apolitical” read “privatized”.
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I would like to offer a “friendly amendment” to that thought. I think it goes back a lot further, at least to FDR and the New Deal. FDR made the federal government a friend to the working class and middle class, really for the first time.
That he did so by successfully using the resources of the federal government to help repair the damage done by the near-collapse of American capitalism (in the form of the stock market meltdown and ensuing Great Depression) was FDR’s unforgiveable sin.
The laissez-faire crowd has been working overtime to try to undermine and discredit the federal government ever since. And while their progress has been uneven, they have made significant progress nonetheless.
In that sense, Reagan’s presidency was really the culmination of those efforts, not the progenitor.
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I don’t blame you and I’m right there with you, even if I’m sometimes purely focused on what a particular person’s game might be. One of the tough emotional things in looking at today’s Republicans is absorbing just how amoral and cynical they are. It’s appalling. We’ve all seen stories in which people redeem themselves, realize before it’s too late the path they’re on will destroy their souls, have come-to-Jesus moments and all that. But it will probably never happen with these people. They’re that far gone. And they run the fucking government. It’s a tough one. 
And yet you have to do your normal stuff every day and not just run in circles yelling and firing a gun in the air. It’s one of those hard balances to strike. So yeah, I hear you too.
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Please, please — tell me his ‘finite’ battery is going to run lose energy … SOON!
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I want him–or somebody–to be 2020’s Barry Goldwater!
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Just when I thought it couldn’t be worse than I thought, you make a powerful and cogent argument that it may, indeed, be even worse than I could have ever imagined. You have posed a completely appropriate question, one which is profoundly disturbing. I literally shuddered as I attempted to contemplate the ramifications of this interpretation of events. I hope you’re wrong, I hope that this is all more like a “perfect storm” of unfortunate events that just happened to build into a tidal wave that Trump surfed into office. But I must admit I’m not all that confident in that hope. Blech.
The first step toward changing one’s beliefs and ultimately one’s actions is articulating - aloud - the previously-rejected point of view. As Bernstein said today, we desperately need some Republican heros - and such creatures have existed in the past, take it from one who is old enough to remember them. Sasse’s response that he doesn’t understand how DJT makes a lot of decisions sounds like an honest, exhausted reflection of where he is right now. I feel no need, or desire, to insult any Republican who, at this point, is starting to question things … There were few people more opposed to the views and policies of Barry Goldwater than I was … but I’m still very, very glad he was there when it counted most.
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Time to plant a spice garden? ~snicker~
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Obama won the Omaha house district in 2008, and it wasn’t that long ago that Nebraska had a Democratic Senator (the odiously conservative Ben Nelson, but still).
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OK, but a hero does more than shout from the peanut gallery.
I’m not there, or even close, on calling this guy a hero or whatever it is you’re getting around to.
Yes, it would be nice and yes, we need it and so do they, even far more in fact.
Also, while I don’t disagree with you regarding Goldwater or what happened then, I do strongly disagree that we are in some kind of parallel place.
The Republicans aren’t heading towards or leaning off of a cliff, they are already tumbling.
That changes everything. They are plain fricking nuts now and beginning to cling on for survival which makes them react differently than just doing the right thing.
A hero at this time would have to turn against his own kind completely and fight them along with the rest of us, in the streets and wherever the fights goes.
Making a basically obvious statement is like peeing in the ocean.
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I don’t think you have to get very conspiratorial to explain all of this. First of all, much of the public data stuff was only put up very recently, during the Obama administration (and often only in the last few years of it), so while noxious in terms of policy, it’s basically reverting to the status quo ante. Billionaires benefiting from dirty hands and greased palms is how most of the world works, unfortunately. For that matter, it’s how the US worked up through 1940s; arguably it always has.
The only thing new, and the most troubling one, is the willingness of Republicans to go along with such a flagrant and open abuse of power, to the extent of submitting their own interests and privileges to it. But in contrast to the idea of a cabal of billionaires dictating everything, it may be because they’re more afraid of their own deranged voters than of anything else. And since these same idiots are on the side of the billionaires, it’s an easy choice* to go along to get along.
*as long as you have no conscience or moral compass, which is a prerequisite to be a Republican lawmaker
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“Why do you think James Comey was fired?” John Dickerson asked.
“I’m not sure how this president makes lots of decisions, so I honestly don’t know,” Sasse replied.
Liar.
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I like your comment. From other posts of mine you may or may not have seen, you would note that I am usually not outrageous. I was testing the murky waters of what is happening because it seems so unconventional in so many ways. Because Trump himself is so erratic and uninformed, it moved me to the question who controls Trump? I do agree that big money is almost always lurking to take advantage at the expense of those who have much less or even very little. And certainly possible its support of Trump no more than that.
Thanks again.
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With the exception of one regrettable incident, it was a successful and uneventful voyage.
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“I’m not sure how this president makes lots of decisions, so I honestly don’t know,” Sasse replied.
Really? I know, and I’m not even a Senator. I’m just some dood with a computer.
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