As a senator and prominent politician, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse might be used to public dissent from time to time, but he has never been criticised quite like this.
Taking to Twitter to express his disapproval and confusion, the Republican senator shared with his followers the messages of one particular critic who is as creative as they are vocal.
"I’ve been getting some anonymous fortune cookies from an angry American — and I think it’s time to give props for creativity..." Sasse, 46, revealed on Twitter, sharing a photo of a fortune cookie with a snarky, critical message on it: "May the afterlife turn out to be a series of never ending Fox News interviews."
Other messages include a request that Sasse be "'trapped in an elevator' with folks who are really angry at me", but the senator appears to be in good humour about the entire thing, taking his criticism on the chin. "(Request: would be great if the next cookie could be less stale)," he said in a follow-up tweet.
Twitter users on both sides of the political divide weighed in on the tweets. Some weighed in with more jokes; one tweeted "may you be forced to interact with voters in a non scripted environment", while another commenter went a little further.
"If we sent you a cake with a list of things we are unhappy about and would like you to change, would you listen? Because the phone calls to your office don’t seem to be working... The list can be written in icing, if that helps."
Others threw their support behind Sasse, criticising the Democrats in the process. "Take notes, Dems. This is what being a good sport looks like. Try it," replied one user.
For the younger, left-leaning American interested in politics, Ben Sasse seems to be a viable target for criticism. As a strong conservative, Sasse wrote a book entitled The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance, which was met with mixed reviews.
One such review, from Alex Nichols at the Outline, described the book as "Millennial bashing", saying that the book was symptomatic of the conservative disdain towards the younger generations.
" Given the arbitrary nature of the Boomer/Gen X/Millennial divides and the difficulty of empirically comparing their respective psychological profiles, his evidence is largely anecdotal. When he does provide hard data, it does little to strengthen his case.
[...]
It’s hard not to view the sudden uptick in Millennial-bashing as a form of psychological projection. Every negative personality trait conservatives identify in Millennials is also present in Trump, the oldest president upon inauguration and the overwhelming favorite of older voters."
With American politics distinctly polarised at the moment, it's perhaps no surprise that a Senator of Ben Sasse's standing is facing a lot of criticism. What is a surprise, however, is the method of delivery for that criticism.
