Senator ben sasse republican u. S. Senator from nebraska thank you so much for joining me. Im excited to discuss your book its called the american vanishing adult and what i find striking about it as i was reading it i think the idea for this probably originated long before you even became usni. Very nonpolitical and its about how we are raising our kids. Maybe you can tell us more about how you decided to write this book. Guest first of all thank you for having me. The book is 100 not about politics and its about a whole bunch of upstream issues in our culture. More important than american politics and you are right by background im a business turnaround guy but im by training an american historian could i spent five years as a college president. Eight years ago i led a turnaround at a college and i cared about this institution. It was in financial trouble. My grandpa went to the college and came back from world war ii and worked at this college. I grew up on this campus because my family. It was in trouble. I wasnt going there for anything connected to student culture but i was restructuring the debt thinking about campus operations and if we would merge or expand the omaha and i got there in one of the things that cause me to lose sleep regularly was what was happening in student culture. You are right that been the senate for two and a half years one of five people who has never been a politician before. This book originates in my mind when i was college president. Host while you were president , that was a key reason why you decided to explore the topic more deeply. Guest the book is about the emergence of a perpetual adolescent. Adolescence is a gift. Its a concept thats really only years old. I realized i was discovering reading and sociology and economic moment. I had all the spin gets that crystallized. One was the story the Christmas Tree that you mentioned. We have a lot of special kids at this college in nebraska and the kids to get to work in the Athletic Department or development and Fundraising Department tend to be some of the best of the best and we have a big athletic arena they are. One year they were decorating the facilities for the holidays. There was a 20foot Christmas Tree to be assembled in a trim entrance to the basketball arena for the bunch of the students were trying to decorate the tree. These are hearty and healthy kids people who should be leaning in in life and they decorated the bottom 8 feet of the tree in a packed up armor leaving. One said hey whats going on why isnt the work done . We didnt know how to get any higher. She said did maintenance recused to bring you a ladder or did anyone think to ask and everyone shrugged their shoulders with passive the day. This book is a constructive book. There is no screaming in the book but there was something there that crystallized this idea of passing day as opposed to figuring out how to solve that actual problem. As we try to unpack in the book there a whole bunch of ways thats playing out across the generations that is grown up insulated from work. Its odd to be 19 and not to have had seven or eight or 10 years of Work Experience in your history. Its a new thing in american life. Host you talk about creeping passively and the decline of agency among the generation of kids coming up right now. What are the forces that are driving back . Another one that stands out is i think was your friends daughter on the cell phone watching youtube videos all day. You see the story is playing out but what is really driving the decline of agency that you are talking about . Guest a couple of things. Theres a difference between production and consumption. Its also something we should feel in our belly because we afflicted. We live in the richest time in the richest place of and in all of Human History. We should be grateful that we are a nation of 320 million overwhelmingly free from material deprivation that is the nondraft most of history but one of the downsides is that is our moment in economic history hasnt been a place where reraise her kids from experience to work as huntergatherers and agrarian spray from the beginning of time to about 150 years ago you just became eight or 10 or 12 or 14 and you did more of what grandma and grandpa did. A few people made a work choice. You were called to the clergy or law form medicine. By and large he didnt have the concept of of choice until the industrial revolution. It was really scary and unsettling. You migrated across the oceans or the countryside and picture job and you had until death or retirement. We have a job choice forever mourn you dont have the exposure to different kinds of work and urban suburban excerpt in Media Consumption environment which is also contributing there. We are in this postindustrial age and we are expecting people to work multiple jobs probably more jobs than ever. I think its one of the Key Driving Forces here and i think one of your arguments is we are not sure of the Younger Generation is prepared to be nimble and able to move from job to job as these disruptions are taking place through the question of whether we can adapt to the economy is that part of it . Guest i think our teens and twentysomethings comingofage are going to have to be more resilient than anybody has ever been before. More is going to be expected of them because of the postindustrial economy. We are not doing enough to celebrate the foundation of future character and we are not having that shared conversation. You mentioned the job change that comes after high school and college. By and large students that graduate in the spring and summer from college are going to changed jobs three times. Not just jobs that change industries three times in their first decade. All the unsettling scary stuff that produce progressivism during the industrialization period was about the idea that Job Disruption created the unsettling ripples in the capital and social networks. A lot of people panicked about is what we are going to experience at warped speed. Not only out of jobs and firms we will have to create a civilization of lifelong learners. Exactly as we have this new challenge where bubble wrapping our kids. Its meant to be constructive but it is directed at parents and grandparents for not having a deliberate conversation about the challenges over soy ends that are going to be required. This is not us not having a conversation about what job retraining is going to look like host i think the closest you get to touching on policies education chapter talking abut the k12 situation that we have and you see obviously a lot of failing. Is it true you homeschool your kids . Guest our kids optin to the Public School your quarter the time then they come on the road. Basically we are geographically split. As a family we live in a farm town outside of omaha where i grew up and my wife was a longtime Public High School teacher and my dad was a Public High School teacher and coach, we love the American Educational system but i think im the only commuting death in the u. S. Senate. My kids are 15, 13 and six and i bring a kid with me every week. We take our kids on the road but we do some tutoring and rehire out some Public Schooling and some on line stuff. We use the khan academy as well. Host in addition to parents having the potential conversations with their kids about economic disruptions happening but can we change in Public Policy so that our Education System is better preparing young people for this new economy . I do want to reiterate the look is 100 not about policy and 99 not about policy but i knew people would want to talk about policy so it was scripted. This wasnt a policy book but here are some the things we talk about. A few of the things i try to flag our number one the concept of grade 13 is a really bad idea. That is a great benefit. At the end of the civil war or 1 of americans were high school graduates. By world war ii almost 80 were high school graduates. Thats not much more than 80 so there hasnt been a lot of change but we created math institutionalized experiences for 14 to 17 and 18yearolds because of the industrial nation it was a melting pot experience. We realized there wasnt a lot of work for kids to do that wasnt dangerous and dehumanizing. Before that kids are grown up as huntergatherers and farming communities doing a lot of work. Our leaders our National Conversation from 1870 to 1940 that we need to institutionalize this for 14 days. Again i think that its been good. Im a strong believer in public funding but i think we should have more debate about institutional form. We need more pluralization of experience to take kids and say we should spend the majority of your waking hours five days a week sitting in a classroom as a passive recipient of knowledge that they think we also need to be wrestling through what its like to be an active learner that pursues the world that travels in the region climbs mountains and learns to work in intergenerational experiences. What does intentional limiting of our consumption that gleick and im worried we havent over learned the lesson as if its an unmitigated good. 41 the 15th governors are remaking their k12 or chrissie, preschool to kindergarten. Thats an important debate about letters and intervention. Thats a debate we need to have that 13 to 16 is a dangerous idea. We dont want to take education and we make it on the secondary model. We wanted to be pluralized institutional forms for higher ed and career job retraining. We want to to teach her kids at some point in your learning you flip the switch and go from being a passive recipient of an instruction at the front of the classroom to be an active learner that wants to throw open the doors of libraries and shakes the trees of nature and demand more burning through with socrates was saying the soil isnt fertile unless the soil is crying out for the sea. He cant machine gun fire hose in the 19 and 20yearold and think theyre going to learn. I want us to be rethinking secondary education on plural forms of a Higher Education model. This guys you mentioned grade 13 narrowminded of one of the ideas that made me think the whole idea about age segregation and how are School Systems are promoting that and i think about my own value of having friends that were much older than me so i could get a much broader view of the world and be more from the late with this but its coming into my life. Tough about houthi age segregation can have the detrimental effect and maybe we should take a closer look at that. Can you explain that a little more . Guest then thing across cultures and across time to have most of your peer cohort people born in your same birth year where you know what experience life from different ages. They are telling you stories about their life the way they developed a work accident places they traveled in way they persevered and people have loved and lost and how they recovered. Turns out if you go down the street and bake cookies with mrs. Nelson down the street that its not as lasting an immediate and supposedly internal and we need lots more intergenerational relationships. There is a curve on Plastic Surgery consumption in america, right now, thats extraordinary. There may be cases and times and needs for certain things but one of the things that is happening isnt just a natural pursuing of the fountain of youth, clean mortality and being scared of death and the fact that the world is broken that is as old as the curse in the garden and east of eden. There is Something Different about being in our time and place that has the narcissistic attachment only to the immediacy of this minute and theres a cotton candy like experience one of the best antidote to that is a little bit of wisdom from knowing different generations the same thing as from knowing about babies and people that are dependent in need them. There is responsibility taking of our 17 yearolds had to know some two yearolds. Will try to figure out how to babysit together as a family, not because its great fun when you have limited leisure time or recreation but im traveling back home but if our kids have to learn to tend to and care for somebody else they recognize that they have responsibilities to their Community Support in terms of potential adolescence that you talk about in the transition to adulthood you talk about the developing logical reasoning skills and a willingness to endure shortterm sacrifices for longterm game. I started thinking about our political system, is congress docked in a fragile state of adolescence . Speak to. Guest the American Experience believes the center of life is not politics. The center of life is not power and we distinguish the words government and community very much on purpose. Alexis went traveled as a travel writer in the 1830s, young democracy in america in such a leading literate audience brought to our folks and our viewers, 1500 pages and it feels like a big heavy book. Finding off of it and lead it in three of seven page chunks in your house. Thats how it was written. He said that he wanted to understand the economic dynamism and was religious diversity and freespeech assembly, price, religion and protest and i was new. This american exceptionalism is about the impact logical truth that Human Dignity built a special community but no one in europe that we have economic dynamism that flowed from our cultural pluralism and theres this dynamism in 1830s in america, transportation revolution, canal revolution, railroad revolution, what led to the factory system later, he wanted to list europeans and since american had economic dynamism they must have the best bureaucrats i went to washington dc to find the meaning of america. He gets here and he says, this place is a swamp dont work that hard. Its not that interesting as we traveled out until 17 other than 25 states, to the capitals, to figure out the meaning of america he wrote back and said the rotary club is the meaning of america for its communal and these people believe in neighborliness and believe in persuasion but is voluntary. It is not compulsory so much of america is about the places where you work and worship for your raise her kids or participate in the rotary or coach pda or volunteer work coach little league. Right now, dc is a strange place because a river of money flows here, five of the seven richest counties are in the suburbs of dc with a lobbyist live and yet, were not focused on anything longterm the Political Parties are mostly just about explaining why the other one is worse than they are and we dont choose the better of two competing longterm vision and we talked the lesser of two evils. There is a perpetual adolescence to the city is rooted in having become less and less historically minded. We are not aware of where he is come from and our shared american narrative is evaporating and were not having a long conversation about policy changes like fiber which were talking about before the show. Host as you explain your arguments you put in historical context. You are a historian and one of the few, train historians of the senate . Guest i think im the only phd in the senate which is another way to persuade my mom i didnt waste six years of my life. Host one thing you learned from the study of the senate is that ashman members would take a year of listening, learning about the institution before speaking on the floor and eu, interestingly, did that. You were first elected in 2014, danny spent a year . Guest a year from election day. Host right, you were interviewing senators, learning about institutions and you eventually delivered the extraordinary maiden speech on the senate floor about the state of our republic and the reductionism and debates, shortterm is him him as you mentioned, in the senate and it struck me brought this book that we not only need right of finalization in the way that we are raising our kids in building our communities but in the fundamental institutions of democracy it seems theres a connection between us to wonder if you see a direct correlation there . Guest the senate sees itself as the greatest deliberative body in the world and it should be but it clearly is not. In the little town i am from, i live outside of 25000 agro dependent town in the middle of nebraska. I can name a dozen notforprofit in my town where their boards to better deliberation than the United States senate. In my town, people distinguish between what problem we are trying to solve before they fight about competing solutions than they distinguish between ends and means. We dont do any of that come to visit dc if you go to the gallery in the u. S. Senate and theres usually someone making a speech of their for cspan and heaven things to cspan and yet, other senators on the floor arent engaging in their debate and its grandstanding and narrowcasting for particular audiences im a business turnaround guy by work history i worked in the Boston Consulting Group and did private equity because the timing i graduated college and 94 and the internet was blowing up sector after sector. I got to go into a lot of processes in sector and industry that were in crisis. One of things i learned is the special privilege of being a newbie. When you get to ask precise questions and i dont have to know the answer to every problem when i get 20 sector and there are a lot of smart people there but there might be a collective action problem in trying to figure out will come next in the travel industry. I work for, big airlines for orbitz and travelocity and xp and came into existence was clear that the Cornerstone Travel agency was going to go away and this new Digital World come into being. I interviewed a lot of people and decided to take that approach when i got to the u. S. Senate. The tradition from the 1790s until about the early 1970s, freshmen senators didnt speak for a year. The tradition went away maybe three40 years ago when i got here i wanted to spend my time getting to know these people and trying to figure out why the senate works because it doesnt. Not focused on longterm issues i interviewed in private many of the senators to get to know them all. One of the threefour and im not very partisan. I dont think the parties are i was indifferent to spending time to the the democrats but i wanted to tie with the people in and out why the senate isnt deliberating why are we not talking about the portability of benefits in an area where people, millennial, will change jobs faster and faster . As i spent time in private time with these people i realize there are some very, very substantial collective action problems which i would summarize insane, as we move into this postindustrial movement, local communities and mediating institutions are being hollowed out. Most americans are not politically polarized and mostly politically disengaged. They are worried about neighborliness and theres loneliness in america plus people are not consuming cable tv, news and talk shows. Of the small subset that are hyper political engage, theres polarization going on but the most is checking out altogether. One of the effects of polarization and the people in these two Political Parties think the main way they would lose their job, frankly, one that gary here is the biggest longterm thought a lot of politicians have in dc is simply their own income of the theres not a lot of real longterm taking. Most people are more afraid of losing the primary and try to persuade anybody of the other party. It turns out thats a moment for fractional eyes the media because of the digital revolution. Narrowcasting becomes a start strategy of what your main goal is reelection i think the big generational projects and projects and they need to do right by the next generation. Host i completely agree with the diagnosis of the problem. How can we think about reforming institution, particularly, how can we be training this new generation of new leaders to be part of the solution what can we be focused on . Guest i think these a very important continuum of current policy debates and yet, its subordinate in my mind too much bigger things. One is the longer term policy debates we are not having and above that is all the basics of x that we are not doing in common. Lets start at the top level. The top level is American Government exist to provide a framework for ordered liberty. Thats what the constitution is doing is trying to structure a world where we first day most problems actually cant be solved by power so it has to be done by the private sector. Go back to rotary club, local mediating institutions for people assembled by volunteers of the then of those things government can accomplish, the american structure assume that you would try to do as much as possible of the state, local levels the ninth and tenth the moment are about and its trying to say nebraska in vermont have really different agriculture. We have really different challenges in trying to think about how you regulate some of the environmental implications of local agriculture. Nebraska is the breadbasket of the world and if you 10000 had feedlot in nebraska the pile of maneuver where they are has some very specific negative externalities that need to be managed when rain water runs off the viewer pile. Most of that is managed at the county level, some of the state level but most of that isnt a federal issue is not in interstate waterways kind of issue. So, we should have state, local and other things that can be managed by federal policy which is now a subordinate third subset we should prioritize the really most important, urgent longterm stuff and none of that liberation is happening. Then you cascade down to the first agree about the First Amendment and why shared civics and freedom of speech, religion, protest, assembly, by that means we need to protect each others right to be wrong we might disagree on fundamental things of life, our fore fathers and mothers came here to argue about heaven and hell and they decided in their contract for cultural pluralism that we wont solve this by balance because you cant persuade us all by violence so lets protect each others right to argue, be protected from violence and sit down at a table and break bread and argue and lets pursue the true, good and beautiful and talk about poetry and innovation in the next app. They are not doing that. We dont have that shared narrative so what you get to is a place where we have a small ball policy fights where you spend your time trying to demonize the other person is having a bad motive so we scream at each other even though not sure what they were having. Right now one of the things that is happening in america is your political leaders were being fundamentally dishonest about what is disrupting the average duration at a firm and we have people attacking trade when trade is not just by economic theory demonstrable as evidence of american Actual Experience trade benefits consumers on both side of any relationship and it benefits up actionable countries. There are subsector challenges for specific industries that lose out when theres more device free trade we should have a conversation about trade medication that works but we should have a conversation of midcareer, midlife training for some of these disruptive communities and we dont do any of that. Why . Because the much bigger reason that jobs are shrinking induration is because of technology, not trade artificial attendance and Machine Learning will accelerate all this stuff and now that we told people live saying that trade is this horrible thing thats destroying their local experience was mike now were the inverse evil and good fight and its my tribe and thats not the work. Host want to dig into this a little more in the short term and some of our congress is very much aligned to the story in the book with increasingly the kids that we are raising because of technology and availability you talk about the abundance theres a lot of Immediate Gratification and a move toward shortterm thinking i think money has a big piece to do at the Community Level and perhaps it has something to do with the problem at the congressional level do you think the constant need to raise money is partly what contributes to the short term of our debates . Guest theres a couple things i want to person there. I do believe in the george washington, tony, eisenhower view of the world that Public Servants should believe that they are here as Public Servants they want to get back home because thats where you work and worship and raise your kids and where you intimate. Right now we have a Political Class where people are desperate to get to this new, imperial rome as a place to stay for their whole lives and a bunch of people who are attentive to where they might go if they lost. First, they dont want to lose. They want to stay forever and if they lose they want to make sure they have a feathered nest at whatever lobbying shop they will land at. That wasnt the founders vision. I dont think term limits are a panacea but i believe in term limits as a strongly as the anti revolving door policies which have i think fundraising is one of the life blood of peoples own pursuit of their own income seat. I think its usually troubling to politicians so much time fundraising. Now, some of the public believes that fundraising means a whole bunch of politicians are in a quid pro quo way bought off to vote a certain way not really that is that people raise money from the sectors that align with the things that they already believe and they do it in a way that limits their creativity to have a Big Conversation about things that may need to be rethought. One basic example which millennial get because they dont expect to stay at the firm there for life, average duration for a primary breadwinner at a firm in the mid 1970s was two and half decades today the average duration at a firm is like three and a half, four years. People are going through disruption of their benefits every time they change jobs. Washington has done important work, and getting portability around and we went from a definedbenefit world to a defined contribution world that was portable. Our healthcare conversations are so beyond the times. Whether people think ca or obamacare did a lot of good or i have my own views on that strongly conservative but the bigger problem is whether you take obamacare and add it to the American Healthcare system. 2010 or you dont add up, care to the health care system. 2000 time in both worlds we werent moving toward a system. We had more portability across job and geographic change and obamacare is not really helping get portability across job change and thats the main driver of uninsurance. If you look into american pundits interviewed public they say the main reason for uninsurance is preexisting medical conditions, status or poverty, socioeconomic status. Those are not the main drivers of uninsurance. The main uninsurance is foursix months of insurance every three and a half for years with a change jobs. Thats when you get the best cancer diagnosis and thats when you have the correct and thats when you develop a preexisting condition population of fiveten15 years. We could solve the preexisting conditions today and the number isnt that large of. Have 4 of the public is the number that spake him its over 10 million probably but its completely soluble in a nation of 300 million. What you cant solve is the extra people that are going to develop preexisting conditions because are not getting to a world where you have a Health Policy that goes with you across job and geographic change. Thats what we should be wanting. Washington isnt focused on those things in there it is fundamental because people tend to raise their money from the exit industries up to date there is no portability Health Insurance market price of ten years from now. Host millennial get the need for portable benefit because were experiencing the 2009 economy and were adopters of this new economic trend. Speaking of millennials, we work millennial actual project works of millennial lawmakers across the country were just Getting Started in Public Service at the beginning of their career and the generation is on the older end of the demographic when youre president and midland may be in college or just graduated they have grown up in the dynamics that youre talking about here and we deftly grope youtube and facebook and social media so is this generations entry Public Service what issues and reform should they be focused on . What would you prioritize . To hear from millennials that we have a broken political system but do i go make change through other means or do i do the service, and if so, focus on the small democratic reforms that can enhance the functioning of the system itself or do we live in the system that were in and do our best to legislate . Guest good question. Besides being a us senator, im in driver. I do work projects with my constituents and i love to work alongside people. Its not just a way to but on the table, its a fundamental anger of identity and i love to work so i started diving october and november for over and its been a wonderful expense. The money flows to some charity that cooper will donate. Host whats your reading mark back on trade. Guest im a 5. 0. People are surprised but its been a good experience. Maybe ill say one cultural thing in a political thing and one policy thing. I think culturally we are making a mistake by allowing the World National or communitybased or communal to become synonymous with political. We need more places where we get to know our neighbors that dont start with the assumption that the only thing we have in common are power based structures in politics. I have an odd experience, im home every weekend and i commute and i can tell you that im a us senator that try to tackle cyber issues and will get to that in the moment but how many people complain about espn is one of the places that used to be a place where they had a shared experience of people that didnt have to be about politics. Begins and democrats will tell me i like when espn was about sports. Espn seems like its an increasing echo chamber of political. This is about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat and the pursuit of human achievement and we need more things to get together with neighbors and we break bread will work alongside it dont start with the political right, left divide. Thats a bit of a base for the young folks that you mentioned. Politically, i think people shouldnt presume that these two Political Parties are enduring in their current form. There should be more skepticism of both parties. In one of the most conservative people in the senate but i think of myself honestly as an independent who caucuses because neither of these two parties is very impressive. When you ask the American People do you identify with Popular Democratic party and if you dont give them the choice to say none of the above, dont give them an option about 46 of the public interrupts a none of the above. About 29 are democrats in 25 are republican. These parties are not very impressive. Urgent people are trying to serve not to be locked into a belief that these parties are going to endure forever. I think there will be disruption in the space. I think mr. Trump, we can talk about him in different ways but thankfully the book he mentions he is not mentioned in the book and has nothing to do one of the things he did his open eyes for oprah and George Clooney and mark cuban and Dwayne Johnson and youll see a bunch of people who have a giant queue waiting in hollywood thinking why do i have to if i can communicate over and run the media now consider doing it. Im not sure that will play out great but i think reality tv and a Reality Tv Campaign and reality tv presidency will cause to rethink a bunch of assumptions. At a policy level, to the most fun changes are too little mind share. The first is this question about the multi career academy. I think that most teens and twentysomethings are well aware that theyll have to get retrained from their 40 and 45 and 50. A huge part of the upright crisis which is a true tragic stomach in our life is partly up phenomenal of whats happening in midcareer hopelessness. Give a whole bunch of things happening, many computing vectors, different supplyside but one of the things that is happening is that people lose their job today and 455055, by and large, they dont get employed again. Hillbilly allergies looks a little bits and pieces of this as well but i think we have to recognize that will have a multi career economy in the future and thats your aunts the way you think about choices you make about the sequencing of more education and work ethic, development and more education and differential experiences across Different Industries and sectors therapy and interprocess and we tend to act like we just blow people up for education to be able to get to they once and for all done with it. Its not true. We need a generation of lifelong learners. Last, ill let you again, i do like that cyber is going to transform the nature of warfare inside the next decade in the lines between military targets and civilian targets both industry and civil society, we are not it already what comes next. I think a lot of people believe that america is always more prepared than everyone else and i believe when america continues to demonstrate our unparalleled if we put our mind to the task and right now we have a bunch of adversaries around the globe that are doing things a plan for the future of cyber that we are not one going back to your point about political disruption in parties thats one of the most fascinating trends in the millennial democratic demographic. No affiliation is growing, independent, millennials now identify as independent and it seems to me my sense is that you agree but i want to get your thoughts on this. There will be a breaking point, either the parties have to reinvent themselves to become more responsive to the needs of the future of our country to have constructive debates again or there will be some emergence of some other political identification that really drives the future of politics because millennials, what we see is that they dont want to be boxed in either party identities. They feel like those parties have been ineffective and thats why you see so many independents affiliation. The barriers are still too high for independents to get electives so you dont see that happening yet but i think what youre saying is, dont lose that, dont lose the influence, be an independent thinker and in fact thats what we need right now. Guest , dad, and im a husband and im in nebraska football attic and im a christian and a conservative and republican when a rank order all those identities i get them out of order. Theres something wrong with him and dad and a husband and a football attic and i know youre a wisconsin fan and you peanuts recently nebraska is weve had a puppy decade and a half. My simple loyalties in nebraska are of communal experience and its positive religion for a second identifier but if i got my subpoint loyalties i had in my responsibility as a dad, theres something tragically wrong with my soul. I think there is a danger that many people want to be engaged in politics think youre supposed to take your partisan identity and your partisan loyalties and you that near the top of your identity. I think thats a bizarre thing to do. I think it creates work in the form people and i do think his Political Parties dont really have a longterm vision for the things that come next. I find it encouraging that more and more millennials are saying, hold up, im not ready to identify with either of those two Political Parties. In his last cycle, i thank you can make a push on case that donald trump successfully navigated a hostile takeover of the republican party. He doesnt have precisely fixed policy views or he certainly doesnt have republican views on the vast majority of the issues. Whether you agree or disagree with pins and or agree or disagree with mr. Trump, one of the things we see in retrospect these parties look, you know, invincible issues a guy was along and says i might just sees that as a tool. I think the democrats are little more fragile as a party then they recognize, as well. It would be healthy for a lot of people want to be cynically engaged in public minded to help a healthier dose of skepticism of these two Political Parties when you mention President Trump and youve not mentioned, in the book, i do think he makes in the present resident reference to him and you talk about the consequence of a declining civic culture, playing out today. Let me offer this and get your response. Once, when you make those references are you referring to President Trump for at least the trump phenomenon where we do have a president seems to have more authoritarian like tendencies or you want someone to handle it all. We dont want to think for ourselves and a second, how do you reconcile with the primary demographic supporting President Trump that was very much responsible for his election is not the kids or millennials but americans age 65 and older. How do you reconcile that smart. Guest once you get to a binary choice, lots of strange things can happen and lots of reasonable people can argue about what traits sits in front of you. Most of why im in public life, again, one in five have never been apologies before is ten and 15 and 25 years in the future. Really is dc actually doing something on tuesday or a month from tuesday is going to change the world. With a budget process for instance in the last 39 years only four times have we spent 30 of the public money by the budget process for 35 to 39 times we just get to the end of the fiscal year, have a crisis, a clip of a Government Shutdown and theres not a serious longterm view around the space. Im interested in longterm questions. I do think that we have a crisis of shortterm wisdom and narcissism thats in the culture and is clearly evident in our politics in the last couple of years but especially in the 16 president ial cycle. We do have a dislike declining sense of how you called great empathy in this book, the vanishing american adult is two thirds constructive project about habit formation. I spent five chapters in a row talking about things you should be spending your time on as a 1319 yearold, mom and dad should be urging you to spend time on. Try to think about limited consumption to develop a work ethic, to travel and thats not the rest present european traveler might be going one neighborhood away and getting to know people in the community that organize and social life and their eating and working experience is different. Intergenerational experiences and c is focusing on at this point. Gutenberg is the father of america. If you want to find one person thats one person that if you didnt have them you couldnt have america and its good for printing press. America created a vast literacy that was highly correlated with creating a massive middleclass that assume that the things that make you happy life isnt just aristotles philosophy and a whole bunch of theology social sciences theirs for drivers of Human Happiness and their basic things family, local community of a couple of friends that feel your pain when you first and they feel pleasure when youre happy, not because they too stupid they love you. If we raise our kids. I dont choose to be sad make his or her, i just heard. How to experience death and suffering and have work that is meaningful. Those four things all tie people back to urgency and action into local community, to building, not to a passive dependency and a yearning for a soft despotism that will solve all my problems. Literacy is a different thing than the frenetic pace of digital Media Consumption. As a driver im a celebrant of the Digital Economy but there are habits and passions and deliberations that are formed and cultivated by being a leader. Not just functionally are you illiterate but in terms of appetite, do you desire to read to have a reading list to have the habit of reading right now, were not doing it. You can see that playing out in our public life for the average american reads less than 90 minutes a day and the older you are, the more you read. Millennials are pretty much less the 19 minutes a day ever living in a twoseven minute dopamine head of shortterm wisdom and it doesnt work for deliberative democracys and republic the one you dedicate an entire chapter to how to build a bookshelf. Its about 40 pages. Guest is under edited and i will agree. Host whats in your bookshelf right now . Guest i read a lot about the future of the economy as you talk about frankly, im doing more of my reading, unfortunately, just because the cyber moment and im reading a lot of intelligence products. At home, one of the things are doing, my wife has become near obsessed with totalitarianism and worry. Starting with north korea anxieties and she read escape from camp 14 and started reading a whole bunch of other things about north korea and started reading them to our kids. Jane has a interesting book the children of monsters about the families of despots and tyrants over the last many decades and so, at our house, theres deliberation about the totalitarianism that has led us to a new found appreciation of American Free speech, press, assembly and religion. Thats the idea that the media is the enemy of the American People and its fundamentally anti american argument and claim and we need to celebrate that First Amendment together. Thinking about totalitarianism in a humanistic sense and as a cautionary tale but im reading a lot right now in the gift of Cyber Threats to america. Host obviously, these are timely issues, number of totalitarian threats abroad and perhaps, domestically. One thing you mentioned that you talked about kids comingofage, and whether theyre prepared to be active citizens. Thats one of the things you conclude with and making american eidetic idea again chapter is the one to raise strong kids but youre saying its not just a question for each individual family, its a question for our entire country, the health of our republic. You made an interesting quote and he said the question is whether people will control themselves or submit to the control of another. Have to think youre thinking of the Current Affairs when you wrote that sentence . Guest more than Current Affairs of politics of the shearer letter. The idea of selfrestraint, selfdiscipline, selfcontrol, selfgovernance, all of that which is a glorious thing in Human History there have been many places where the individual system and the local community of the family as possible of selfgovernment and restraint. It presumes a certain habit pattern. The world is a broken place and there are people who want to take your life, liberty and stuff and we need security. People will inevitably be fearful of the brokenness of a world that could degenerate into all against all. There will be order keep. There will be security in the world and the american republican experiment experiment presumes that local citizens know the virtues of selfrestraint. I do worry that we are not deliberating about that enough that our teens and twentysomethings as they come of age, not blaming millennials, but this Broader Community debate they dont tend to know instinctively the distinction between production and consumption so we act like more and more consumption might satisfy you although the data shows that more more consumption doesnt lead to satisfaction, and leads to a cotton candy like hangover. There may be a dopamine hit not just in my physical consumption of food my cotton candy terminology but our digital consumption can lead to a shortterm is him where we believe something world changing and new has happened in the last two minutes since i checked twitter and im active on peter. I like twitter. Needs. Is not a government staffing, then sasse is a dad and has a lot of fun and i like her but theres something wrong with my affections if i think i missed out on something in two or 20 minutes in order. We need a longerterm set of sensibilities and habits that were not tending to that information for our teens right now let me paint an additional narrative narrative and get your response. Millennials today intry. Spellingpoint obvimse ,spellingcomma yep space lea spellingcaret. Spellingdot its space thie spellingrightdoublequote tr mspellinguppercaseletter r. Spellingdot formore space le spellingrightparenthesis 8spelling spellingminussign. Spellingperiod does this next generation of millennial have the energy and active citizenship skills that you are talking about for the challenges of our time and i go back to millennials been very severely active in a volunteerism sampling and theres a recent study showing the number one factor of young people choosing a career is what type of impact they can have under larger community. How do you reconcile that narrative with the narrative that we paint in the book . Not to say that their mutually exclusive but one worth reckoning with . Guest great distinction. First of all, i would say do they have the wherewithal and the perseverance of the toughest to do it by potential absolutely. By current habit, no were not doing enough. And when you talk about the millennials understanding from working many many different types of jobs, the future is a multiplayer economy. I am with you. Millennials understand this more than a generation or two about them. Bill gates has a really helpful line that massive economic changes in the past that really unsettled society, again, industrialization and urbanization and Mass Immigration being the most proximate analogy. 1870 to 1920, those were intergenerational changes weve been using the term postindustrial. We dont use the term post agricultural or d agriculture is asian we talk about industrialization what came next we dont know what comes next right now. We see postindustrial as a way of throwing in the towel insane the Digital Economy, the it economy, the portable economy but we dont know what the is so we call it postindustrial. What gates believes is that the farmer in the farmer and his wife for the farmer and her husband didnt leave the farm and technological substitutions reduced the need for labor there, they realize their kids would have to leave the farm and go to the city. Our millennials know that this is not going to be generational, its not that theyll grow up in their kids will have to do Something Different, they know theyll be portable many times to their life but at the exact time as we should be having a debate about what are the habits and infections that lead to the kind of skills that will navigate well that 40 or 50 something disruption and were doing more and more bubblewrap. Between helicopter parenting. Have a safe Space Movement on the College Campuses that should be deeply troubling to everyone who believes in the First Amendment. 41 of americans under age 35 now and thats pushing half of people under 35 say that the First Amendment might be dangerous because you might use your freedom of speech to Say Something that would hurt someone elses feelings. Actually, thats what america is about that we are tough enough that we can have an agreement to protect each other from violence and to protect each others right to be wrong so that we can debate, not just that i can persuade you but so that i might recognize the humility that i might need to be persuaded by you we should have a meal together and wrestle to those questions. If youre creating a movement on campus where people think theyre never psychotic ideas they didnt agree with the why are you paying for tuition education is the countering ideas that you dont agree with. I think we have a protective bubble experience that parents are trying to facilitate what we really should be doing together is celebrating scar tissue. Host the right to scar tissue is the foundation of future character one you are optimistic about the future that you think we need to have this conversation now in order to have a thriving democracy. Guest i do think that. One of my key moment that led me to write this book because i wrestled with it as a College Student and then once i got to the senate, a little over a year ago my wife and i shipped off our 14 yearold daughter to a cattle ranch and wanted her to have some tough love experiences and having to check the. This ranch was going to have 600 baby cows born in little over a month and nebraska is pulled in march. The baby cow porn at 3 00 a. M. In march in nebraska might get frostbite on his years, separated from mama and you have to tag them. My daughter was getting have to go out and suffer. Shed have to don lepper called and she didnt know that she be losing a watch and they are delivering a baby cow. This is a tough love experience. The love that. She was suffering and she didnt like it and yet she knew this was a good thing for her. It was warming character. I turned her text into tweets, every time she would text me something and had the factor of a 14 yearold girl dealing with tech and blood in poop. Experience delivering house is messy. I would fix them out it became a viral event in nebraska and as he traveled the state for the next couple months even in a controversial potential plane when nebraskans wanted to talk about was how their kids can suffer too. I give them the ranchers phone number. I believe there is a burgeoning movement of people in america who want to be having a shared conversation with their neighbors and their extended networks of how we do right by kids and how we build more perseverance and great internet. Its not usually a political conversation. Its a neighborly conversation one senator seven, i will have more time to talk but when i have kids ill make sure they get the manual labor on a cattle ranch and will make it happen. The book is called the vanishing american adult, senator ben sasse, thanks for joining me today cspan, where history unfold daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas People Television companies. It is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Good afternoon. Good afternoon