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[Fulminator]

Just because Buzzfeed uses weird creepy bullet point lists doesn't mean adults need to. There's absolutely no reason this couldn't be an actual essay. You can't run for President as the Elder Statesman of Intellectual Conservatism if you assume your readers can't follow a short 1-2 page piece articulating your ideas without dumbing it down for them. Sorry Ben.

I feel like this is a petty complaint...bullet points are fine. the manner in which ideas are organized are second to the the content, so long as it is legible, imo

For short stuff like this at least

E: thinking about it this post is kind of dumb lol, organization of content matters a lot

Don't think bullet points are dumb or unintelligent though

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Some good points, some bad, but why the hell is it written as bullet points?

 

[Afrodium]

I don't read point 13 as a straw man attack on the left/media for wanting to tear down Washington/Jefferson statues, but a comment on an observation that many on the right are parroting this argument and confused by how these historical figures differ from Conferderates due to Trump intentionally attempting to shift the topic to statues as pointed out in point 10.

 

[Red]

Who on the left is parroting this? On what network have thy congregated where that now seems to be the majority view, or looks like any realistic proposition?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

That list doesn't exactly give hope

 

[Cvie]

I thought this was actually pretty gross, trying to hide bullshit among the obvious

 

[j_k_redtail]

6. I expect that violence will come when white supremacists and the alt-right fight anarchist groups aligned with the extreme left. ‎

7. What will happen next? I doubt that Donald Trump will be able to calm and comfort the nation in that moment.

Then remove him. Every day he is in power, the country is pushed closer to the abyss.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I feel like this is a petty complaint...bullet points are fine. the manner in which ideas are organized are second to the the content, so long as it is legible, imo

For short stuff like this at least

E: thinking about it this post is kind of dumb lol, organization of content matters a lot

Don't think bullet points are dumb or unintelligent though

1. It's a lazy formatting technique for people who don't have time to segue between points

2. Sasse has a long record of pitching himself as a wise educated ivy leaguer who has a conservative heart, the adult in the room

3. He expresses ideas the way I'd expect an undergraduate who never learned to write an essay would.

4. He just wrote a book about how Millennials are wimps who like participation trophies so I'm not going to give him a shiny ribbon because he made a Facebook post about how America would be better if we all worked together

5. It's telling that the post mostly offers answers to questions no one asked and leaves all the questions people actually asked unanswered, because Sasse is vacuous and has no solutions.

6. You won't believe this video of me making aquarium cookies with my puppers!!!!

I've noticed that most people would rather have bullet-pointed correspondence over emails versus a prose styled response. I don't like it any more than you, but people will often purposefully ignore non-bullet pointed communication for professional correspondence, in my experience.

I assume you didn't write a best-selling book about the moral decay of society because of kids these days not mastering basic life skills like public communication, but the author of this Facebook rant did.

 

[Haly]

1. It's a lazy formatting technique for people who don't have time to segue between points

2. Sasse has a long record of pitching himself as a wise educated ivy leaguer who has a conservative heart, the adult in the room

3. He expresses ideas the way I'd expect an undergraduate who never learned to write an essay would.

4. He just wrote a book about how Millennials are wimps who like participation trophies so I'm not going to give him a shiny ribbon because he made a Facebook post about how America would be better if we all worked together

5. It's telling that the post mostly offers answers to questions no one asked and leaves all the questions people actually asked unanswered, because Sasse is vacuous and has no solutions.

6. You won't believe this video of me making aquarium cookies with my puppers!!!!

This is an extremely legible post you have to admit.

 

[Afrodium]

Who on the left is parroting this? On what network have thy congregated where that now seems to be the majority view, or looks like any realistic proposition?

Whoops, that was supposed to say the right. I've edited the post.

 

[besada]

The problem with "going back to the American ideal" is that it was never on offer for parts of America. It was never on offer for blacks or hispanics or gays or women that didn't want to get it solely as someone's wife. The U.S. succeeded well in the melting pot, until the colors of the pot stopped being white. We successfully blended a dozen or more white ethnicities into a single one, but we left out everyone else, at first legally, and now culturally.

That's the problem with "Hey, let's all just think of ourselves as Americans and forget identity politics." Without identity politics, white men continue to exist under one standard and everyone else another. So it's not surprising that the call to end identity politics comes over and over again, from white men, particularly white conservatives.

I'm fine with continuing the great American melting pot, but first we have to turn up the heat, because lots of it has never been allowed to melt. Once we're all on the same footing then maybe it'll be time to set aside sub-coalitions and all belong to a single big coalition of equals.

 

[Xe4]

This is... fine, as in, if this had been sort of similar to the speech Trump had given, I don't think there would've been ad much backlash.

Sad we have to look to Congress to see well thought out (to an extent) positions that don't immediately boil down to both sides nonsense is sad beyond reckoning.

I have my problems with it, in that it doesn't criticize Trump harshly enough for his horribly made speech on the terror by Nazi's the other week, and it still does feed into both sides nonesense, just luckily not to the same extent.

There is no group of people on the left actively and un-Americanly trying to make this country worse through violence. That's not to say there haven't been those on the far left who have done disputable terroristic activities. Barely two months ago, James Hodgkinson did just that. There are other less recent examples that can be given as well.

But there are no groups on the left willing to use violence to achieve their goals as the KKK and Nazi's are, and the far left's goals. While I strongly disagree with them for a wide variety of reasons, don't wish to take the country back to when black people could be publicly lynched with no punishment.

There are those who wonder about statues of other slave owners and all around shitty people. I wouldn't call them racist, but I don't think they've entirely thought the situation through. The reason confederate statues are being removed is not that they owned slaves or whatever, but that they killed Americans and started a war that nearly tore our contra apart in the process. It's more about not celebrating trators instead of not celebrating slavers, though both are despicable.

That's not to say there is no grey area, because with every issue there is. What about confederates who later went on to do great things and had statues put up for that? Should we remove statues from the public view of all high ranking confederates or just the ones put up to celebrate their achievements in the war? Luckily in most cases, it's pretty obvious, but in a few it's not. That doesn't change the fact that Washington statues aren't getting taken down anytime soon. Though it would be nice if more schools also taught what a slave owning POS he was.

Those are most of my problems with his speech (or post or whatever). There are more, but all in all, it's about what I'd expect from somebody in the GOP to say about Charlottesville. What's sad is that it's the lowest standard I hold a politician to, to denounce terrorism as terrorism when it happens, and the president of our country didn't even do that!

 

[Apharmd]

Fuck him. More diet racism shit. He offers nothing in the solution of the underlying issues that the explosions of violence are a symptom from. Also, y'all raised a good point. He did point 11 and then shits the bed with point 13. This equality bull is more of an excuse to be intentionally obtuse about the purpose of the statues to impose order on African Americans.

 

[numble]

So, Ben Sasse is unsurprisingly not a racist and a decent student of history. But he's equally unwilling to actually criticize Trump, who isn't even a Republican.

There's a lot of good in his post. Sasse is, by all accounts, a thoroughly decent human being. But Facebook posts don't do shit against white supremacists and Nazis.

Vote to censure the goddamn racist-in-chief and we can have your nuanced debate.

Trump is the head of the Republican Party.

 

[Future]

I'll never understand the confederacy debate. The flag represents a union secession because of a desire to hold slaves. To celebrate that memory you are either loving the idea of traitorous states leaving the United States, or you are loving the idea that people fought for the right to have slaves. There is no grey area or positive light to shine on it

George Washington, Christopher Columbus... all had negative traits and were not saints. But they did do positive things that led to the birth of the United States. What did the confederacy do besides divide a nation literally and prompt a civil war by being on the wrong side of history?

 

[Chumly]

1. It's a lazy formatting technique for people who don't have time to segue between points

2. Sasse has a long record of pitching himself as a wise educated ivy leaguer who has a conservative heart, the adult in the room

3. He expresses ideas the way I'd expect an undergraduate who never learned to write an essay would.

4. He just wrote a book about how Millennials are wimps who like participation trophies so I'm not going to give him a shiny ribbon because he made a Facebook post about how America would be better if we all worked together

5. It's telling that the post mostly offers answers to questions no one asked and leaves all the questions people actually asked unanswered, because Sasse is vacuous and has no solutions.

6. You won't believe this video of me making aquarium cookies with my puppers!!!!



I assume you didn't write a best-selling book about the moral decay of society because of kids these days not mastering basic life skills like public communication, but the author of this Facebook rant did.

THIS!

Ben sasse gets a far better rap than he should be.

 

[Kusagari]

Fuck Sasse.

I'm sick of his pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Nobody is buying it. He offers no answers to any of the questions he provides and refuses to do anything about the president of his party that he outright admits is listening to racists and can't adequately respond to a crisis.

 

[Kuroi Gogeta]

3. White supremacy and racism are un-American, period.

I mean racism and white supremacy have been with america from the beginning. To say it's un-american is a fine sentiment, but it ignores the history. It ignores slavery, it involves the vast popularity of pseudosciences such as eugenics and phrenology, it ignores redlining, it ignores Jim Crowe, it ignores slave patrols, the color line in almost every sport, share cropping, stop and frisk, etc. At every turn racism and racial barriers have been there. Saying racism is un-american ignores the fact that the founders of the country did not start off with voting rights for anyone other than property owning males. I'm tired of this narrative that seems to paint racism and white supremacy as one off accidents in an otherwise perfect country.

There was never a conversation about race in america, even when you look at the discourse around race it's always about how far black people have come. Black people should never ever ever have to prove that they are human and have lives of equal value. They should never have to explain why one of their children who was shot in the streets should be grieved like any other child, but here we are. That is the starting point every single time something happens to a young african american they need to make sure they show pictures of him at a graduation because a picture of him "looking like a thug" somehow makes it okay that he was killed in the street like an animal.

The statement comes off as kind of just a rambling thing. He's wrong on a few things--yes Christopher columbus SHOULD NOT be celebrated. The man is a war criminal. Like I'm completely for more nuanced discussion about american history and civics etc. but let us keep it 100 here. Right now there are textbooks being circulated in schools that minimize the brutality of the slave trade, that minimize the impact of racist policies that followed slavery and have led to the difficulties faced by the black community today. If we're going to talk about American history, we should stop deifying men who if brought to america today would be disgusted at gays marrying, women in the workplace or the very idea of a black man of mixed race holding the position of a mail man let alone the president of the united states. This "beautiful america" narrative as I call it needs to go in the dumpster. Germany doesn't "yadda yadda" over the holocaust, Canada doesn't ignore smallpox or residential school or the 60s scoop, some Americans still see their country through rose tinted glasses and that shit needs to stop

 

[Caelus]

George Washington, Christopher Columbus... all had negative traits and were not saints. But they did do positive things that led to the birth of the United States. What did the confederacy do besides divide a nation literally and prompt a civil war by being on the wrong side of history?

Not sure about listing Christopher Columbus there, I'm willing to accept him as a part of history but not as having committed any positive actions.

Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton... all had their share of cognitive dissonance as they personally couldn't reconcile their internal racism with their belief in Enlightenment era philosophy, but they wrote the Constitution in an abstract enough way (aside from the 2nd amendment and concessions to slave owning territories) that we could have a more just government, and GW sort of embodies that Cincinnatus ideal.

For Trump to equate Davis with Washington and suggest both "saved America" is an insult to the nation's history. I really want to punch that son of the bitch in the face, would make him prettier too.

 

[Mortemis]

I don't understand how your head doesn't explode from the cognitive dissonance involved in criticizing Trump for "both sides" rhetoric in the middle of a "both sides" rant.

It really makes my head hurt. So the president is wrong for making the "both sides" comments that half of his essay or whatever is talking about? What?

He makes good points and understands some issues, but just sounds so indifferent to it all. He mentions the failings of the past for not furthering civil rights (at least I think that's what he was talking about), but doesn't actually want to do any work to further civil rights and prevent white supremacists from furthering their rhetoric. All he wants is "no violence".

Basically as others put it, he's spewing a whole bunch of nothing.

 

[theclosetfan]

Harsh reactions to his here...

I disagree with Sasse on a bunch of stuff (and roll my eyes at his millennial bashing) but I appreciate any conservative who doesn't engage in conspiracy mongering bullshit these days.

This is the type of thing I can share with my family members who are having a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that they were conned by Donald Trump. I'll take it.

 

[beelzebozo]

"i'm a republican, but not a racist, i vote for policies which continue racist systems, and i will gladly continue to do absolutely nothing about an obviously racist president, but as a republican i am definitively not racist, and would not explicitly endorse white supremacy in public"

 

[jonezer4]

In summary, admittedly extremist right wingers are to blame for what's happened so far...

But the left-wing is solely responsible for the deluge of theoretical future violence to come!

 

[Ogodei]

Could be a lot worse. GOP could be closing ranks around the alt-right, even if it's not bringing them to the kind of self-awareness that would make real progress in this country, it's better than the alternative.

 

[arglebargle]

Ben Sasse disapproves of Nazis and is willing to do absolutely nothing in his power to stop them from running the White House. Also, if there's more violence, the left will be to blame.

Message received!

This has been ben sasse's MO for trumps entire administration so far. Hand wringing and statements but when it comes time to vote or otherwise take action he falls in line with the party.

 

[King Tubby]

I think mostly the ideas in it are fine, and it's good and noble to call for unity, but he never addresses why the left would even have any grievances in the first place, or really anybody left of center who isn't a "media elite." You can't call for unity and then dismiss the other side, or criticize your president and then not offer any actual resistance to him. It's very hollow.

 

[Byakuya769]

The Honorable Senator B. Sides, Nebraska.

My take as well. Fuck out of here, Sasse.

Keep in mind that this is the same goof who could only nervously laugh at Bill Maher’s flippant nigger usage.

 

[Fenderputty]

Ben Sasse disapproves of Nazis and is willing to do absolutely nothing in his power to stop them from running the White House. Also, if there's more violence, the left will be to blame.

Message received!

Hmm

He clearly blamed the Nazis. Seemed like he's expecting more of a tit for tat response. Which isn't necessarily out of the question.

That being said ... he ain't done shit but write this letter.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Harsh reactions to his here...

I disagree with Sasse on a bunch of stuff (and roll my eyes at his millennial bashing) but I appreciate any conservative who doesn't engage in conspiracy mongering bullshit these days.

Sounds like a participation trophy to me. You don't get points for showing up and demanding to be judged by the exceedingly low standards of your peers. In fact, George W. Bush, thinking man's conservative that he was, describing giving people points because they were part of a historically unrecognized group, was the "soft bigotry of lowered expectations". I won't lower my expectations of Sasse. I believe he can communicate like an adult and make cogent points without being an idiot, if only he'd apply himself. Besides, thinking of Sasse as the group that he's a part of would be identity politics and he wouldn't want me to do that. We all have to reject identity politics.

However annoying this is, please know that Ben Sasse's net worth is $1.5 million and he's getting paid $174,000 a year of taxpayer money and I'm writing this post for free and I'm a year away from finishing the lease on my $20,000 car, so he can safely do without your sympathy.

 

[LiK]

So his statement is just all talk without any real action.

 

[Spoiled Milk]

So his statement is just all talk without any real action.

Actually, the talk is the action.

 

[pigeon]

Actually, the talk is the action.

In the sense that being a quisling is an action, this is true.

 

[Fenderputty]

Actually, the talk is the action.

This. It's not much but we need more on the right saying

A. Trump needs to do more
B. It was the white supremacists fault in Charlottesville

 

[pigeon]

This. It's not much but we need more on the right saying

A. Trump needs to do more
B. It was the white supremacists fault in Charlottesville

Ben Sasse is a senator. He has quite significant power to legislate his desires rather than just talking about them.

The fact that he felt like talking about Trump and white supremacy being bad but didn't feel like actually trying to introduce a bill should be taken as an indication that he intends to be complicit.

 

[O Canada Our Home and Native Land]

1. This thread is now about bullet points.
2. Team bullet points represent!
3. There isn't going to be a retaliatory attack. The right being paranoid as usual.

 

[Fenderputty]

Ben Sasse is a senator. He has quite significant power to legislate his desires rather than just talking about them.

The fact that he felt like talking about Trump and white supremacy being bad but didn't feel like actually trying to introduce a bill should be taken as an indication that he intends to be complicit.

Does this change what I said? Liberals were taking tallies of weak politicians who won't call out trump by name and were playing both sides rhetoric in Charlottesville . Those two difinitive statements need to be said by leaders on the right

 

[Byakuya769]

1. This thread is now about bullet points.
2. Team bullet points represent!
3. There isn't going to be a retaliatory attack. The right being paranoid as usual.

Not paranoid, hopeful.

 

[SapientWolf]

In the sense that being a quisling is an action, this is true.

Public shaming from their own communities and families would be more effecacious than fists from outsiders.

 

[HerbertBirdsfoot]

I don't like Sasse much but he knows history and was one of the few top republicans who stayed never trump through the election.

Honestly though I'd never vote for him the most consistently non-annoying anti-trump voice in the GOP has been Kasich. Decent enough guy I'm just not aligned with politically at all.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I don't like Sasse much but he knows history and was one of the few top republicans who stayed never trump through the election.

Honestly though I'd never vote for him the most consistently non-annoying anti-trump voice in the GOP has been Kasich. Decent enough guy I'm just not aligned with politically at all.

If there was an American Idol vote and the choices were Trump or Sasse, I'd be overloading the lines for Sasse. If you could grade plausible presidential candidates from 1-10, Mitt Romney and John McCain and Ben Sasse are all lower than any plausible Democratic candidate for me, but they're all higher than the 0 I'd give Trump. If I could wake up to a Ted Cruz presidency tomorrow I'd be the happiest man in the world. The Republican Party is intellectually bankrupt and their strongest held convictions make the world a worse place, but the thinnest veneer of professionalism is infinitely better than the explosive awfulness of having a child throwing a tantrum with his hand on the nuke button. Literally every single one of the other Republican primary options would have been a better choice than Trump. Literally any sitting Republican Senator or Governor would have been a better choice than Trump. Sasse is probably arguably better than the median Republican.

But... When I was a kid I remember a gymnastics meet where I got a 6th place ribbon on pommel horse, and I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of thing Sasse would hate, so I'm not planning on giving him an award for being somewhere between the 200th and 400th best plausible candidate for President.

 

[HerbertBirdsfoot]

But... When I was a kid I remember a gymnastics meet where I got a 6th place ribbon on pommel horse, and I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of thing Sasse would hate, so I'm not planning on giving him an award for being somewhere between the 200th and 400th best plausible candidate for President.

Ha ha Sasse wrote like a whole book about how triggered he is by participation ribbons lol. Yeah he'll never be nominated for president. He's kind of a weenie.

Also just to get my 2020 prediction out there so I can proudly go quote it when it comes true: The Trump presidency continues to be a shitshow most glaringly on racial issues and foreign policy badness. Trump either resigns or calls off the 2020 run. Nikki Haley resigns sometime this year and is the GOP nominee in 2020.

 

[pigeon]

Ha ha Sasse wrote like a whole book about how triggered he is by participation ribbons lol. Yeah he'll never be nominated for president. He's kind of a weenie.

Also just to get my 2020 prediction out there so I can proudly go quote it when it comes true: The Trump presidency continues to be a shitshow most glaringly on racial issues and foreign policy badness. Trump either resigns or calls off the 2020 run. Nikki Haley resigns sometime this year and is the GOP nominee in 2020.

I don't really understand why the GOP would nominate Nikki Haley. She combines the disadvantages of having worked for a Nazi with the disadvantage of being an Indian woman in a party full of Nazis.

 

[HerbertBirdsfoot]

I don't really understand why the GOP would nominate Nikki Haley. She combines the disadvantages of having worked for a Nazi with the disadvantage of being an Indian woman in a party full of Nazis.

These are good points, well taken! I should give up trying to predict things. I mean Donald fucking trump got elected president in 2016 and I would not have predicted that in a million years.

 

[Arkeband]

Reading this I was like "why the fuck are these numbered", so reading the first post made me laugh.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

I don't really understand why the GOP would nominate Nikki Haley. She combines the disadvantages of having worked for a Nazi with the disadvantage of being an Indian woman in a party full of Nazis.

GOPers desperately wanna prove there's no racism eating away at their party by nominating "one of the good ones".

Ben Carson was polling at like 20% just on the basis of being a black neurosurgeon who was anti-welfare, for example.

 

[sangreal]

Well at least he managed to point out the truth behind Confederate monuments

 

[Ishan]

decent points ... but yes more action needed

 

[DietRob]

The problem with "going back to the American ideal" is that it was never on offer for parts of America. It was never on offer for blacks or hispanics or gays or women that didn't want to get it solely as someone's wife. The U.S. succeeded well in the melting pot, until the colors of the pot stopped being white. We successfully blended a dozen or more white ethnicities into a single one, but we left out everyone else, at first legally, and now culturally.

That's the problem with "Hey, let's all just think of ourselves as Americans and forget identity politics." Without identity politics, white men continue to exist under one standard and everyone else another. So it's not surprising that the call to end identity politics comes over and over again, from white men, particularly white conservatives.

I'm fine with continuing the great American melting pot, but first we have to turn up the heat, because lots of it has never been allowed to melt. Once we're all on the same footing then maybe it'll be time to set aside sub-coalitions and all belong to a single big coalition of equals.

Man, that is a really good way to put it. I'm going to need to steal that and use it in the future. Great post man. You nailed it.

 

[Finalizer]

There's some good points in there, but the B O T H S I D E S takes and other such nonsense are giving me a headache. The most generous I can be toward the whole thing is that it might help ease in conservatives with its leftist blaming to help them understand some shit they should already know and possibly delve into some self-reflection, but who am I kidding, they'll probably just start calling this guys a RINO on social media.

 

[nocturnalis]

I cannot wait to see who plays Sassy when he eventually runs for president. During the Republican selection process, he was mad about Trump in a way that somebody can only be if they think something is being ruined for them.