Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse (R) in a new interview published Monday said Congress was not “wrestling” with big or important questions, hammering both the Republican and Democratic parties for not grappling with more forward-looking issues.
“Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050, at a national security level, at a future of work level, at an institution-building level,” he told CBS News.
“The Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now,” Sasse added.
The former lawmaker suggested current lawmakers be more open to publicly adjusting their stance on legislative issues after learning more about a topic or hearing a fresh perspective.
“It doesn’t encourage a lot of humility,” Sasse said of the culture in Congress.
“It doesn’t encourage someone saying, ‘You know what, I used to believe this, but I listened to somebody else, and I realized I was wrong, and I’ve learned this new thing.’ There’s no audience for that,” he added.
However, Sasse said the country’s democracy will survive by welcoming new perspectives on old issues.
“The Senate needs to be less like Instagram. The Senate needs to be more deliberative. And that means less smack-down nonsense,” he told CBS.
“A republic actually requires people who do deliberative, long-form discourse, learning, humility and community building. We’re not doing that right now,” Sasse added.
One of the areas where he said lawmakers should take a deeper dive is artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to impact society in a positive way.
“What the digital revolution does is it accelerates almost everything about the human experience,” Sasse said.
“Anything that can be reduced to a series of steps, which is most economic activity, is going to be routinized and become really, really cheap, really fast, and really ubiquitous,” he added.
Sasse, who has been open about his terminal prostate cancer, has been reckoning with mortality and urged his former colleagues to do the same.
“We’re all mortal. We’re all on the clock. We’re all going to be pushing up daisies eventually, and I think wisdom requires us to grapple with our death and our finitude early,” he told CBS.
The former Nebraska senator urged lawmakers to focus more on community building and interpersonal relationships, not their professional titles.
“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—. The best thing you can do is be called dad or mom, lover, neighbor, friend,” Sasse said during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
In separate comments to the outlet, Sasse shared his “parting wish” is for elected officials and citizens across the country to grapple with their mortality and the contributions they can make to future generations.
“I think we need to have more deliberation about our mortality and our finitude to therefore get back to wisdom about what living a life of gratitude looks like,” Sasse said.
“I’d like a lot more dinner tables to turn off the devices, put them out of the room, pour a big glass of wine, break bread together, and wrestle with some really grand questions about what you’re building for your family and your next generation,” he added.
