Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has written a book that attempts to understand this political division that leads to the extremists on both sides who have so little tolerance for disagreement or compromise. He says the country is facing a crisis of loneliness. If political outrage is the visceral response, its most dangerous symptom is the opioid epidemic that’s leading to overdoses across the country.
Sasse blames the rapid shifts in society that have led to isolation and fragmentation. We no longer share common cultural experiences that bind our country. As opposed to most of the country watching one of three or four channels, we’re all off on our smart phones watching God knows what. The rapid loss of jobs to technological change has left behind people who can’t adapt because of a lack of education or experience. The civic institutions and clubs that once flourished are now dying out.
I don’t disagree with Sasse and admire his intellect. I just don’t understand his conclusions. Sasse says that government and politics can’t fill the void and fix the problems. He yearns for the days where thriving small towns dotted the country. He wants a rebirth of civic pride and an embrace of the institutions that are in decline.
Sasse needs to accept the fact that we’re never going back, and while our politics today may need fixing, government and politics certainly do play a role in alleviating the despair. The rapid demise of the small towns across the Midwest and South came from the economic devastation of free trade agreements as much as the advance of technology. Government could have, and should have, helped people in their path transition to more marketable skills. They should have used the some of the profits from free trade to build an infrastructure that might have attracted at least some of the new technology jobs. Instead, we turned our backs on them as victims of creative destruction.
The embrace of supply-side economics has ensured the benefits of our rapidly changing society have stayed with the people who were benefiting from the old system, too. Today, they are even more affluent while the GOP tax structure deprives our government of the resources to educate and train workers to be nimble enough to survive. Policies promoted by his party have destroyed the unions which provided workers not only a voice but the social cohesion and shared sense of purpose that he says we’ve lost.
The Kiwanis and Rotary clubs to whom Sasse dedicates his book served a merchant and professional class that barely exists in the age of big box stores and corporate medicine. We can’t revive the civic institutions of the past, as Sasse seems to want. We need to build new ones based on a world that will increasingly be connected digitally. We need a massive skills building program that teaches people to be flexible and adaptable, not how to run a loom or welder. Those are political choices that require government to partner with the private sector job creators.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
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