How Ben Sasse warns of Trump’s GOP being ‘a vehicle for the grievances of the angriest, oldest folk

GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska urged the Republican Party to change direction in an address at the Reagan Library and Museum in California.

Speaking in front of “A Time for Choosing Speaker Series” logo and flanked by teleprompters, laid out a new vision for the GOP.

“We Republicans, we have a big choice to make. We can either continue to drift as a party that exists increasingly as a vehicle for the grievances of the angriest, oldest folk or we can be a future-focused party of 2030, with policies centered on the future of work and the future of war,” he said.

“Tucker Carlson had the most-watched show cable this year, checking in at 3,030,000 viewers one night last month. Lawrence O’Donnell clocked in at less than half that and Anderson Cooper at CNN, about 800,000. It sort of sounds like a lot until we remember that this gorgeous, continental nation has north of 330 million souls,” he said.

“The median age of an MSNBC viewer, what do you think it is? Sixty-eight. CNN, basically the same. Fox evening programming has an even more geriatric audience,” he said.

“Politicians who spend all day shouting in Congress so they can spend all night shouting on cable, they’re peddling crack,” Sasse said. “Most of it to people who are already addicted, but also with some glittery hopes of finding a new, angry, octogenarian out there.”

Sasse, who turned fifty in February, appeared to refer to septuagenarian Donald Trump in his speech.

“What this party cannot be is a cult of personality and grievance,” he said. “I’m a Republican because I’m a conservative and I’m a conservative because I believe in gratitude. Everyone born here is immensely blessed and the heart of keep the Republic always starts with gratitude.”

“American conservatives, we don’t traffic in grievance,” he claimed. “Our party must reject politicians that they’re victims.”

“Americans have never wallowed in self-pity,” Sasse said.