Former Sen. Ben Sasse has long been saying that Washington politics are broken. That’s not a unique message, but he has a subtle angle to his critique that deserves more attention.
Aristotle tells us we are political animals, and Sasse agrees. But today our politics are too national and partisan and insufficiently local and cooperative.
Sasse discussed this problem at length in his 2018 book Them. Now he is dying and is on a media tour that put him recently on 60 Minutes, where he made the same point. When host Scott Pelley asked Sasse why he is a Republican, Sasse responded that the party of Lincoln and Reagan was the best at combatting the idea that “Washington is our fundamental political community.”
Sasse explained: “I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood, and your city hall and may be even your state legislature. And right now, we are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level, and that should be like the ninth thing, or the 15th thing you care about, not the first or second thing.”
Sasse brushed off the idea that our bad politics are fracturing our culture, arguing that the causal arrow pointed in the other direction: “I don’t really think our current politics are driving what’s happening. I think it’s mostly an echo of what’s happening. I think we have really thin, shallow community right now. And unless people know the thickness of their local community, it’s hard to make sense of what national politics are for. I think our national political dysfunction is an echo of larger problems.”
Later, speaking of the zeal with which some lawmakers cling to their jobs, Sasse said: “We got a lot of people who serve in government who really do think the highest and greatest thing you can ever do is have the title senator or congressman. Bulls**t. The best thing you can do is be called Dad or Mom, lover, neighbor, friend.”
Sasse is correct that national partisan politics take up too much of our attention. But I want to make the point a bit broader than Sasse did in this interview:
Our problem is not simply caring too much about Trump and Kamala and Congress. Our problem is caring too much about activism, government, policy, and elections in general. Activism isn’t bad in itself, but activism is often rivalrous with community: The more time you spend trying to change the world, the less time you spend living and working among your neighbors.
Ryan Streeter reported on this a few years back at AEI:
“Active members of traditional civic organizations such as religious and volunteer groups” and “members of other civic organizations, such as athletic teams, hobby groups, or school-based organizations” are less lonely than the average American. “By contrast, active members of political organizations have an average loneliness score two points higher than the national average. … In addition, the survey finds that socially active yet lonely — yes, it is possible to be both — young adults ages 18–35 are seven times more likely to volunteer in politics. …”
Politics is making us lonely, and loneliness is making us more politically partisan.
This is true for the Left and Right, red and blue. The fiercest supporters of Trump were those most likely to say they felt like strangers in their own land. Trump’s base in the 2016 GOP primaries were the disaffected and alienated.
But in general, the problem is more acute on the Left: Progressive columnists have reported that opposing Trump replaced serving the community:
The more alone and disconnected we get, the more likely we are to engage in radical activism.
In 2023, sociologist Miloš Broćić published a rigorous paper in the American Journal of Sociology, titled “Alienation and Activism.” One key finding: “Alienation in the forms of meaninglessness and social isolation predicts participating in both radical and reactionary movements.”
Broćić studied the attitudes of teenagers and found that those who felt most “alone and misunderstood” and who found life “meaningless” were more likely to spend their time protesting. For instance: “Meaninglessness and social isolation were the strongest predictors for Occupy Wall Street.”
We need less occupying Wall Street, and more caring about Main Street.