Sasse tempts Trump's wrath by refusing to bow
The Republican senator and persistent Trump critic stokes speculation about his intentions with a soon-to-publish book and new nonprofit.
What is with the media creating these narratives of Republican politicians "standing up to Trump"? It started during the election (Rubio, even Paul Ryan) and has continued even as the party is remade in Trump's image... Senators like Sasse, Bob Corker, and Jeff Flake make the occasional comment critical of Trump when he's at his most vulgar, and then vote the way Trump wants almost everything, and the media eats it up... "Don't worry, Susan Collins would NEVER vote for a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v Wade!"... even Mitt Romney has pretty much fallen in line with Trump now that he's running for Senate.
When the Trump train inevitably derails and the Republican Party has to pivot somewhat-away from "overt comically evil white nationalism", these guys like Sasse are the Republican leaders who will be held up as examples of the "principled conservatives who resisted Trump" when it reality they didn't do jack shit.
https://twitter.com/onlxn/status/1016368293769240576
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/1016369968110292992
The reality:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/07/the-wasted-mind-of-nebraska-sen-ben-sasse.html
The Republican senator and persistent Trump critic stokes speculation about his intentions with a soon-to-publish book and new nonprofit.
Sasse, a 46-year-old Harvard and Yale-educated former university president, has established himself as a fiery anti-Trump figure. During a Dec. 2015 speech on the Senate floor, he derided then-candidate Trump as a "megalomaniac strongman." Later in the campaign, he called Trump "creepy" and said he was running to become a "king"; said he doesn't think Trump has "any core principles," and skipped Trump's nominating convention to "instead take his kids to watch some dumpster fires."
More recently, Sasse has called the president's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports "dumb," and has described Trump's escalating trade war with China "nuts." His opposition to the tariffs is shared by other farm-state Republicans, though they've used much less pointed language.
The barrage has led to speculation that Sasse is interested in waging a long-shot primary challenge to Trump in 2020. He's set to make a national splash with the release of a new treatise, "Them: Why We Hate Each Other — and How to Heal." According to a description provided by Sasse's publisher, he will bemoan a "pessimistic" country where Americans are "so lonely we can't see straight ― and it bubbles out as anger."
In a move that's sure to further stoke speculation about a presidential campaign, Sasse has started a new tax-exempt political group, America 101, whose mission states: "We believe that in order to prepare ourselves for the challenges of decades to come, fundamental changes are needed. It's time to get back to basics."
What is with the media creating these narratives of Republican politicians "standing up to Trump"? It started during the election (Rubio, even Paul Ryan) and has continued even as the party is remade in Trump's image... Senators like Sasse, Bob Corker, and Jeff Flake make the occasional comment critical of Trump when he's at his most vulgar, and then vote the way Trump wants almost everything, and the media eats it up... "Don't worry, Susan Collins would NEVER vote for a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v Wade!"... even Mitt Romney has pretty much fallen in line with Trump now that he's running for Senate.
When the Trump train inevitably derails and the Republican Party has to pivot somewhat-away from "overt comically evil white nationalism", these guys like Sasse are the Republican leaders who will be held up as examples of the "principled conservatives who resisted Trump" when it reality they didn't do jack shit.
https://twitter.com/onlxn/status/1016368293769240576
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/1016369968110292992
The reality:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/07/the-wasted-mind-of-nebraska-sen-ben-sasse.html
Sasse's Senate votes have so far aligned with Trump's wishes 95 percent of the time, the same level of support that Trump has gotten from right-wing ideologues like Ted Cruz and party loyalists like Chuck Grassley. Sasse voted to confirm ill-informed Cabinet appointees like Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos; he's voted to steamroll the judicial filibuster and stayed silent about the secretive way the Republican health care bill was written and presented to the public.