Mr. Sasse’s experience as a senator in a time of hyperpartisanship gives his analysis a special poignancy… [his] remedies are wise and well-expressed… his prose has a distinctively cheerful warmth throughout. Perhaps at last we have a politician capable of writing a good book rather than having a dull one written for him.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Sasse is highly attuned to the cultural sources of our current discontents and dysfunctions. … Them is not so much a lament for a bygone era as an attempt to diagnose and repair what has led us to this moment of spittle-flecked rage. … a step toward healing a hurting nation.” —National Review
“Sasse is an excellent writer, unpretentious, thoughtful, and at times, quite funny … even if you disagree with some or all of what Sasse writes, it's an interesting book and his arguments are worth reading — as are his warnings about what our country might become.” —NPR
“The Nebraska senator presents a hopeful path forward.” —New York Post
“If Sen. Ben Sasse is right – he has not recently been wrong about anything important – the nation’s most-discussed political problem is entangled with the least-understood public health problem. The political problem is furious partisanship. The public health problem is loneliness. Sasse’s new book argues that Americans are richer, more informed and “connected” than ever – and unhappier, more isolated and less fulfilled." —George Will, The Washington Post
“Sasse emphasizes the importance of civil debate, denouncing Fox News and MSNBC, and laments the extreme partisanship that characterizes public life in the Trump era. But ‘the dysfunction in D.C.,’ he says, stems from something ‘deeper than economics,’ and ‘deeper and more meaningful’ than politics. 'What’s wrong with America, then, starts with one uncomfortable word,' he writes. ‘Loneliness.’” —The New York Times
"An eloquent appeal for healing... what makes Them worth the read is Sasse's amalgam of realistic alarm and warning." —The Guardian
“Mr. Sasse’s strongly written analysis of our current existential unease should hit a national nerve.” —The Washington Times
"Sasse presents a compelling, well-supported look at why so many of us no longer have strong community ties and, why, in spite of all the interconnectivity in our constantly expanding, internet-driven world, so many people feel lonely.... whether readers agree with his political views or not, Them is a crucial contribution to a more open and productive social dialogue." —Booklist
“A thoughtful plan of action to begin to dissolve the toxic divisions that threaten the very survival of our Republic. While I often find myself at odds with Senator Sasse over specific policies, we are as one when it comes to understanding the need to transcend these mostly superficial differences of party and partisanship to ensure that the country we both love endures. Here’s the blueprint for going forward—together." —Ken Burns, filmmaker
“Ben Sasse confronts our destructive obsession with political theater. Candid, sensible, and wise, Them gives a nation blinded by myside-ism a reminder that the love of neighbor is our highest calling, and the surest path back to our founding ideals.” —Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute
"Ben Sasse thinks free speech is in peril in the United States — and he's right. Far too many on both the left and the right are jettisoning America's inheritance and settling instead for the mentality of the mob. Sasse pulls no punches in diagnosing why we're experiencing so much loneliness, how technology is fueling greater division, and what we must do to put free expression and meaningful engagement back at the heart of our democracy. Read it!" —Kirsten Powers, USA Today
"Ben Sasse and I don't agree on every issue, but that's why this powerful and persuasive book is so important. Because we do agree on a fundamental point — Americans have to find a way to civilly discuss our differences and rebuild trust in each other or our nation is doomed. By examining the roots of this crisis, Them offers a path out of hate and toward greater understanding." —Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google (2001-2017)
“If you really want to know how to make America great again, get off of Twitter and read this book. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin knows that the moral, cultural, military, and economic power of the United States is far too great to challenge directly. And so, befitting his KGB background, he launches insidious attacks to turn Americans against each other. Unfortunately, as Them illustrates convincingly, this was already been happening on its own. The amazing American-made technology that is connecting the world is also dividing the country of its birth, weaponized by both foreign aggressors and home-grown demagogues to create bubbles of partisan hatred and collective ignorance. America may have lost its way, but Senator Sasse shows that the best way to recover is by bursting these tech bubbles and coming together as human beings, communities, and citizens. Them provides a map back to a place where Americans can once again savor the unique freedoms that unite them instead of the politics that divide them." —Garry Kasparov, world chess champion, and author of Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
“Senator Sasse’s Them is a cry from the heartland to remember who we are and what unites us. As a family man, scholar and politician, he takes contemporary America to task for our tribalism, exclusion, reflexive attitudes and outright harshness to one another. At its heart, his is a call to community—the best antidote to those who would divide our society and exploit our darkest angels.” —Gen. Michael Hayden (US Air Force, Ret.), former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and former Director of the National Security Agency (NSA)
“Finally, someone says it — politics will not solve our problems. And further, neither Trump nor the resistance is the cause of them. Malignant loneliness is. Through his inimitable historian’s gaze, Sasse cuts through the self-serving partisan noise to jerk us back into focus on what’s important: community. It’s so much easier to blame each other than to remember it’s “each other” that makes us great, fulfilled, healthy and moored. I don’t care how old you are, where you’re from or what you do — you need Ben Sasse to slap some sense into you. WE all need to hear the hard truths of Them.” —S.E. Cupp, CNN
“A wonderfully thoughtful — and wonderfully thought-provoking — book that challenges us to recognize and embrace, at a time of hyper-partisanship fueled by technology, the importance of what unites us as Americans over what divides us. Them provides a passionate and persuasive argument for rebuilding the bonds of community, planting roots and tending them, remembering what is truly important in life, and getting the most out of new technologies without allowing them to undermine our ability to come together to address the challenges we face.” —Gen. David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
“In this era of division, we must remember America is at its best when we resolve conflicts through the principles of compassion, understanding, tolerance, and above all, civility in our political discourse. Our country was founded on the notion that these values could lead to a more just and more harmonious society. In Them, Ben Sasse reminds us that in order to preserve these basic tenets we must open our hearts to the hopes and anxieties of our fellow Americans, seek common ground and community where we can find it, and engage each other around shared values. Only then can we renew the dream of our Founders, to ‘create a more perfect union.’" —Sean Parker, founder of Napster, and first president of Facebook
2018-09-02
The future of the republic depends on humility, empathy, and respect for pluralism.
Sasse (The Vanishing American Adult, 2017, etc.), Nebraska's junior senator, lives in the same small town in which he grew up, which still evokes the "hometown-gym-on-a-Friday-night" feeling that gives him a strong sense of rootedness and community. In his impassioned critique of contemporary America, he acknowledges that the world of his childhood has changed for most people. Today's culture has become mobile, where people move from place to place and job to job: We "just don't have community cohesion like we used to." Although the author denies that he is nostalgic for the world in which he grew up, he extols the 1950s, when "work, faith, recreation, and family were bound up together"; I Love Lucy was a shared touchstone; and a close-knit community of families helped raise one another's children. Americans today, he argues, are in a dismal state: lonely, fractious, and adrift. "We are in a period of unprecedented upheaval," he writes. "Community is collapsing, anxiety is building, and we're distracting ourselves with artificial hatreds." Those hatreds are fomented by what he calls "polititainment," niche media outlets, social media, and websites—on the right and the left—that confirm biases rather than allow people to become well-informed. Sasse singles out Fox News' Sean Hannity, who hammers the message, "liberals are evil, you are a victim, and you should be furious," and he also criticizes the quashing of free speech on college campuses by those who object to "dissenters from campus majoritarian orthodoxy." Drawing on the ideas of the Founding Fathers, the author maintains that foremost among American values is the affirmation of "the dignity of our fellows." The "terrible 2016 election," he asserts, "was just a painful symptom of the bigger disease—which is our growing disinterest in the meaning of America." Sasse offers a generalized, overriding recommendation for healing: identifying and nurturing common bonds.
A sensible and thoughtful yet hardly groundbreaking political analysis.
