GOP Sen. Ben Sasse Says Republicans Want ‘Strongman Daddy Figure’

Sen. Ben Sasse‘s (R-Nebraska) Thursday speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institue issued a strong message to his own party.

“In the 2016 presidential campaign, you had two candidates with wildly different solution sets, but their fundamental diagnosis was really the same,” he said. “The system’s rigged, you’re getting screwed, you’re a victim, the country is going down the tubes, you’re victims.”

“The left wants a powerful, nameless but supposedly benevolent bureaucracy. The right wants a strongman daddy figure, but the loudest of them all agree on one thing: America, the one the founders gave us, the one kept for us by our parents and grandparents, it doesn’t work anymore,” he added. “They can’t work anymore. These are not the good faith positions of two big healthy political parties that are just competing about different visions of leadership.”

He warned that the U.S. is falling behind as a global superpower due to a loss of confidence.

He clarified his point by calling out members of both parties. He labeled Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) a “choose your own dictatorial adventure.” He went on to condemn Reps. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) and Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) by comparing them to the far left for being “prophets of doom.”