FREMONT, Neb. — Local Republicans, whose campaign to bar illegal immigrants from renting or working here attracted national attention, now have a presidential nominee pushing their issue — and a hometown hero who’s one of his biggest GOP detractors.
Ben Sasse grew up in Fremont, returned as a college president to save its most important institution, and in 2014 was elected to the U.S. Senate. He’s said he won’t vote for Donald Trump, he called for a third-party candidacy, and he vowed to leave his party if it’s remade in Trump’s image.
Trump's recent attacks on a Mexican-American judge presiding in the Trump University case elicited this Sasse tweet Monday: “Public Service Announcement: Saying someone can't do a specific job because of his or her race is the literal definition of 'racism' " -- an assessment Speaker Paul Ryan echoed the next day.
But most Republicans here either like Trump or feel compelled to support him as the duly elected nominee.
Sasse, the Senate’s first and lone declared “Never Trump’’ Republican, “has shot himself in the foot,’’ says Bob Warner, a former city council member who sponsored the immigration ordinance in 2008 and voted for Sasse. “He’s the kid who says, ‘If you don’t play my way, I’ll take my marbles and go home.’’’
“This is a post-primary unity state,’’ says another activist, John Grothusen. “We line up behind our nominee.’’
Emotionally, however, many Republicans in this city of 26,000 are torn between Trump, who promises to secure their borders, and the favorite son conservative who follows his conscience.
“We should write an opera,’’ says Bob Flittie,
a talk-show host on KHUB radio.
The libretto’s the same across the nation, as Republicans decide whether to sing along with Trump at a time when grass-roots movements have exposed fissures in the major parties.
“The two parties will largely come apart over the next 10 years,’’ as more young voters refuse to align with either, Sasse (pronounced SASS) said in an interview. “We’ll look back at this moment as seminal.’’
Anti-Trump in nearly every way
Sasse is everything Trump is not — young, polite, evangelical, intellectual. He likes big ideas and big words; Steve Pribnow, his accountant, jokes that he leaves meetings with Sasse “with five new vocabulary words to look up.’’
Sasse has criticized Trump for not distancing himself from former KKK leader David Duke, for promising not to touch Medicare and Social Security, and for indifference to constitutional restraints on presidential power. He calls Trump “a “dishonest New York liberal’’ — like Hillary Clinton.
Just four months ago, Sasse was the Never Trump movement’s pinup boy. He talked of “an 1860 moment’’ like the one that first brought the Republicans power. Just a month ago he wrote on Facebook, “This is America. If both choices stink, we reject them and go bigger.’’
But Sasse declined to run, and no other major figure has stepped up. Asked about third-party prospects now, he said, “I don’t concern myself much with that issue. … I’m not spending a lot of energy trying to persuade anybody about anything’’ election-wise.
Even if he’s lowered his third-party flag, Sasse’s refusal to support Trump sticks in the craw of Nebraska Republicans, particularly since he grounds his position on what he hears at home.
His “Open Letter to Majority America,’’ an early May post on Facebook calling for an alternative to Trump and Clinton, was written on the banks of the Platte River after talking to constituents at Walmart. “I trust the judgment of this farm town way more than I trust D.C.,’’ he wrote.
The feeling is not entirely mutual, particularly among Republicans who don’t like Trump but dutifully support their nominee and resent someone unwilling to make the same sacrifice who lords it over them.
Also, “Republicans around here want the White House back pretty bad,’’ says Flittie, the talk-show host. A dissenter looks like a saboteur.
Trump’s response has been, by his standards, mild. He’s tweeted that Sasse looks like “a gym rat’’ — a compliment around here — and that a third-party race “would be the work of a loser.’’
Trump won the May 10 Nebraska primary (held a week after his last rivals dropped out) with 61%. The following Saturday, the state GOP convention overwhelmingly condemned Sasse’s call for a third-party conservative candidate and rejected an anti-Trump resolution.
Ex-governor (and fellow Fremont resident) Dave Heineman has called Sasse’s third-party idea “fantasy.’’ He backs Trump, as does Nebraska’s senior senator, Deb Fischer, who told the convention “the people have spoken.’’ Even Gov. Pete Ricketts, whose parents paid for anti-Trump TV ads in the primaries, has climbed aboard.
Some Fremont Republicans applaud Sasse’s stand. Amy Pimper voted against the anti-Sasse resolution at the convention. “He shouldn’t be censured — he should be admired for his courage, whether you agree about a third party or not.’’
She sympathizes with Sasse: “I’ll support the most conservative candidate who can get elected. But he (Trump) is not a conservative. Does he really hold any conservative views?’’ She says if she votes for Trump, it will be only because of the Supreme Court vacancy, “while holding my nose.’’
Maverick tradition
Like most of Nebraska outside Omaha and Lincoln, Fremont — named for the first GOP presidential candidate, John C. — is solidly, conservatively Republican.
John and Elaine Grothusen, septuagenarian stalwarts of the county committee, have been handing out “President Trump’’ yard signs from the front porch of their 1911 Craftsman bungalow.
But Trump was not their first choice for president, and they're in awe of Sasse's resume: despite his obstinacy — or because of it. Nebraskan Republicans have always had a weaknesses for mavericks like George W. Norris, the progressive U.S. senator from 1913 to 1943, and Chuck Hagel, the two-term senator who became Barack Obama’s Defense secretary. Harvard (bacherlor's degree) and Yale (doctorate in U.S. history); corporate consulting as a turnaround specialist; assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration; professor at the University of Texas.
A high school valedictorian, Sasse graduated from Harvard College, where he was on the wrestling team; St. John’s College in Maryland, where he earned a master’s degree; and Yale, where he got a doctorate in U.S. history. His dissertation won several major awards.
After Yale he became a corporate consultant, winning a reputation as turnaround specialist. He went on to work in the Justice Department, and in 2007 President Bush appointed him a Health and Human Services assistant secretary, specializing in health policy.
In 2010, Sasse became one of the nation’s youngest college presidents when he took over at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont. The school was in deep financial and academic trouble; Sasse turned it around with PR (he changed the name to Midland University), back-to-the-future policies (taking class attendance, spot quizzes) and prodigious fundraising. Enrollment more than doubled.
In the decisive 2014 GOP primary for an open Senate seat, Sasse defeated several better-known rivals. He campaigned tirelessly across the state, often with his wife and three kids, in a rickety red RV. He hammered Obamacare with the help of a prop — a nine-foot high copy of the Affordable Care Act.
In the Senate, he’s compiled one of the most conservative voting records. He cast the lone vote against a heroin and opioid abuse bill, saying such treatment is the states’ responsibility.
John Grothusen, who was on Sasse’s Senate campaign committee, says that despite Sasse’s Trump apostasy, “People won’t throw him under the bus until they can find someone as articulate on conservative causes.’’
He says he excuses Sasse because of his youth (at 44, Sasse claims to sometimes be mistaken for a Senate page) and inexperience: “He’s not really a politician. He not even a GOPer. He’s never been to an RNC meeting. He’s never been to a county convention.’’
Immigration at heart of division
The Trump-Sasse collision was in some sense caused by the immigration issue, even though Sasse did not take a stand on the local ordinance while he was at Midland, the lawyer who drafted the local ordinance endorsed another candidate in the 2014 primary, and immigration hasn’t been one of his signature issues in Washington.
Trump's recent attacks on a Mexican-American judge presiding in the Trump University case elicited this Sasse tweet Monday: “Public Service Announcement: Saying someone can't do a specific job because of his or her race is the literal definition of 'racism.' "
For most of its history, Fremont was lily white. But between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of Hispanic residents tripled, to 12%. That created cultural tensions that culminated in the introduction in 2008 of a law to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants and landlords from renting to them.
The ordinance was approved by local referendum in 2010, long contested in court, and approved in a second referendum in 2014. But even its advocates admit the law’s limited impact. Fremont’s major private employers are located outside the city, and it’s easy to get a rental license.
Grothusen, who supported the law, says it proves “you can’t solve the problem without federal support.’’
The candidacy of Trump, who excoriates illegal immigrants, has coincided with the issue’s revival here, in the form of a proposed Costco chicken processing plant that could draw immigrant workers to the area.
In such a climate, is Sasse a profile in courage or futility? Mark Fahleson, a former state party chairman who helped draft him in 2013, says “If Hillary Clinton wins, Ben Sasse looks like a prophet.’’
In October, Sasse said, “at our house, we’ll look at what third-party options are available. Then we’ll spend a lot of time thinking and praying about who to vote for.’’
That’s his plan. Here’s broadcaster Flittie’s: “I’m practicing saying, ‘President Trump.’ "
