Sasse doubts Trump will face major GOP challenger in 2020

President Donald Trump is unlikely to face a major GOP challenger in 2020, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-NE, said Wednesday at a National Press Club Headliners Luncheon.

Trump “has basically captured the majority of the Republican Party over the course of the last two and one-half years, Sasse said. "The Republican electorate is pretty comfortable with the anti positions” that Trump takes on a lot issues.

In discussing his new book, “THEM:Why We Hate Each Other —and How to Heal,” Sasse told the audience that the “free press is not an enemy of the American people,” but are instead living out a First Amendment calling. But, he said, that doesn’t mean there should not be discussion about blurred lines between straight reporting and editorial/commentary.

Sasse attributes the deepening national divide to the gradual erosion of “our sense of community” and subsequent efforts to fill that void by seeking communities of “anti-tribes” -- groups with common views -- on social media and cable news.

"Community of places,” where people know their neighbors, develop long-term friendships at work, and worship with each other, “are in collapse,” Sasse said. Since humans are social animals they need to be part of some tribe or group, which leads to joining “communities of ideas,” such as “news media tribes.”

“There is no ‘we’ in America media consumption today,” Sasse said. Previously, nearly everyone had a local newspaper, a regional or national newspaper, and three broadcast TV channels. Now, he said, 93 percent of the nation’s population has access to 500 or more broadcast or cable channels. The incentive in media organizations is toward “fan service,” rather than speaking to a 70% audience, which no longer exists, he said. Almost everyone is writing for a subset of a 1% audience, he added.

The obliteration of the distinction between straight reporting versus editorial/commentary is a “really big deal and we are not paying nearly enough attention to it,” Sasse said. While print journalism is more deliberative and more amenable to thinking about the distinction between straight reporting and commentary, he said, the Internet is producing news more like cable than print. This has a “huge consequence” for 320 million people trying to get back to “we.”

The country will also have to reckon with the expected proliferation of manipulated audio and video images, Sasse said.

“Where will the Walter Cronkite be” who can stand up and tell the American people this audio or video is fake?, Sasse asked.