Oh Brother Where Art Though Run Out of Town on a Rail

Books In Conversation

ROSS BENES with Christopher Heine

"Living in a minor, conservative town, it was nearly instinctive to hate Big Government."

Ross Benes introduced himself to me with a common cold email shortly afterward he moved to New York Metropolis in the fall of 2014 on a recommendation from Dionne Searcey, an former friend of mine from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). The three of us were UNL J-School grads, though Benes was virtually a generation younger. Looking for work, his professors told him to seek out Searcey, as she was known to be gracious and obviously going places, building a noteworthy career reporting for The New York Times that culminated concluding yr in a Pulitzer Prize. Since Benes gained feel in 2013 writing for the publication Crain'south Detroit Business organisation, she told him to contact me because I was, at that time, technology editor at Adweek magazine.

At that publication, it was non uncommon for me to take more than twenty,000 unopened emails. The VC-fueled technology sector made certain people like me were getting hundreds of PR pitches every unmarried day, and, after a while, i becomes too blinded past bullshit to open more than than a few at a time. So Ross was wise to pull on his target's prairie-born heartstrings with "Nebraska" in his beginning subject area line directed at me, and I agreed to have a beer with him at The Cardinal Bar near my East Village workplace.

I had to exist a scrap of a buzzkill right abroad and inform him that I didn't have much of a freelance budget to work with, nonetheless I told him I'd help with my contacts throughout the city equally much as I could. And and so Ross filled me in on some of his by, as well as his long-term and brusk-term aims. He hadn't been in NYC but for a few months and was a wide-eyed, 24-year-erstwhile kid from Brainard, Nebraska (pop. 420), which was virtually 125 miles directly s from the farm I grew up on almost Bow Valley (pop. 116). He noted that he was stricken with not one only three lifelong illnesses—autoimmune hepatitis, ulcerative colitis, and primary sclerosing cholangitis. He told me he was interning at Esquire and was in talks for contributing to Deadspin, all of which seemed similar a more-than-good showtime to a journalism career. He then told me he had a literary agent, which he obtained while he was even so finishing college. Fifty-fifty though his agency was a small-scale shop that sounded like a bootstrapping startup to me, I was astounded. He found someone to correspond him while in college at Nebraska? After catastrophe our conversation after two beers and subwaying home to Brooklyn, I later couldn't help only think, That amanuensis state of affairs must be, similar, a half-step removed from self-publishing, correct?

Later that fall, Ross began joining my motley crew of fellow Nebraska natives to watch our higher football team on Saturdays at swoop joints like Culvert Bar in Gowanus. On such occasions, Ross'south freestyle humour and wonky curiosity became credible, foreshadowing his get-go book, The Sex Issue, published by Sourcebooks in 2017. I later learned that Ross was a practicing Catholic who held strong to his midwestern sensibility. Even and so, here was a guy who was so genuinely interested in the history of sexual politics that he talked to porn stars and attended BDSM clubs to gain provender for The Sex Effect, and researched the arcane sexual histories of the Vatican, Greek military, U.s.a. Navy, and Corn Flakes. All of that digging produced a book that spotlights the hypocrisy and petty nature of sexual policies held past organized faith and national governments.

So when he told me he was writing a book about Nebraska politics, I wasn't all that surprised, considering it seemed similar a similar kind of research toil, or an bookish crawling to scratch. When I got my copy of Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold (University Press of Kansas) in January, I was expecting a matter-of-fact-just-somewhat-irreverent tone because Sex Effect was written that fashion. (I accept regrettably not read his second book, Sex Weird-o-Pedia.) From ane of Ross's podcast appearances, I knew Rural Rebellion focused on the concluding 10 or 12 years of Nebraska politics. As a history nerd whose great-great-cracking-grandfather was an elected Nebraska territorial representative in 1866 when the country get-go put the wheels in motion to go role of the union, I looked forrad to geeking out about the motherland—especially stuff from contempo decades, since I hadn't resided in that location since 1999.

But Rural Rebellion is much more than a history lesson. It'southward the story of trying to brand sense of mod America through the lens of a young dude, Ross Benes, who was raised on steak, potatoes, and God but now—as a South Park Slope resident—lives in a place where the menu of cuisine, faith, and politics is much different. It explores his attitudinal evolution effectually healthcare, immigration, and other policies that have benefited his experiences in contempo years, turning him from a firebrand of western individualism to a part-liberal, part-pragmatic species of American that too often gets brushed bated in the media's monolithic coverage of "likely voters."

Christopher Heine (Rails): Permit's jump right into something in the news today (Feb. xiii) that points to some of your book's underlying messages most partisan division. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, a Republican in a state that Trump won more than easily twice, voted to captive former president Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6th insurrection. Generally speaking, what does your book, Rural Rebellion, say about Sasse'south likely fate back habitation due to that vote?

Ross Benes: It says that Ben Sasse will face a hell of a lot of resistance for speaking confronting his party's dear leader. Sasse will probable be censured past his ain party, talk radio will hammer him, and activists and donors within his party will try to primary him should he choose to run once more. Good news for Sasse is that he'south well-nigh six years abroad from having to win some other election. By the fourth dimension he really is up for office once more, I don't think our memory spans volition hold onto this moment long enough for it to injure him significantly. Should Sasse make up one's mind to run again, he'll have a major name reward and probably a money 1, too, unless he'southward running confronting [electric current Nebraska governor Pete] Ricketts. Nebraska Democrats are too inept to pose a significant claiming for him. Only I get the sense Sasse is priming himself for either a presidential run in 2024 or to become a cabinet fellow member should a non-Trump Republican get elected president in the foreseeable future. So, he may not have to win over Nebraska voters over again anyway.

Rail: Your book explains what happened to Nebraska in the concluding x-12 years. What's the No. 1 effect? Why have things changed so much in the Cornhusker Land?

Benes: Well, I know it sounds trite, but I call back the biggest issue is the parties are then nationalized that the Nebraska Republican Party at present is actually not much unlike than the National Republican Political party, and the same goes for the Autonomous Party. When the Republican Political party is nationalized and the national political party goes crazy, that drags the state further to the correct. People used to be able to take their ain stances more against the party.

Rail: Similar onetime Republican senator Chuck Hagel and Democratic senator Ben Nelson, Sasse has gone against his party—or more specifically, Trump—a few times. That maverick mindset used to exist a sense of pride in Nebraska.

Benes: Now, every politico is very similar to their political party peers across the country. Anyone who belongs in the Republican Party, their voting records are non going to differ a hell of a lot from the top to the bottom. You're going to have 99% loyalty on the high end and probably 85% loyalty on the depression end. So, I see Nebraska going to this deep far-correct because it's the local example of the Republican party going off its rails.

Rail: The first chapter of Rural Rebellion is called "Pro-Life License Plates." Roman Catholics brand up 23% of Nebraskans, 25% of its citizens are Evangelical, and simply 24% are "mainline Protestant." The residuum of the population is non-Christian, mainly a mix of Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, and people who give non-answers on surveys. So, as much as half of the people are getting told in church every Sunday to only vote Pro-Life. Which explains the license plates to a certain caste. Just do those numbers explicate the land's allegiance to the GOP?

Benes: I hateful, Nebraska has a lot of people who don't just identify equally Catholic or Protestant, they're in the pews on Sundays. And all those minor towns have churches. The [Roman Catholic] Diocese of Lincoln has more than priests per capita than any other diocese in the Us. When we consider the Christian Right's influence on the Republican Political party, I think Nebraska's high level of clergy and Christian identity is strongly correlated with their fidelity to the GOP. The churches had a huge part in driving people to that. Hearing sermons every Sunday that want you to basically vote Republican, that had an effect. And I don't think the churches were as involved with parties in the 1970s and 80s.

Runway: They weren't; I was there.

Benes: Yeah, the civilization wars really took off during my lifetime in the 1990s. And it's plain not merely the Catholic thing, just the Christian aspect, I believe, is a large part of that. I don't think Democrats accept washed a good job of appealing to Nebraska Christians.

Rail: As y'all know, I grew up near a Nebraska small village and was raised Catholic. But however I was raised in the Omaha Diocese (234,000 members) and yous grew up in the Lincoln Diocese (97,000 members), which might be the most conservative diocese in the United States.

Benes: Oh, yeah.

Rail: Honestly, what was that similar? Because those of us who grew up in the Jesuit-leaning Omaha Diocese and who went to church possibly a few times in the Lincoln Diocese, we could find a deviation just by attending a mass.

Benes: Information technology'south more than bourgeois culturally. And I've lived in Detroit and I've lived in New York City, and when I've gone to mass in those places, it wasn't all sermons nearly abortion and gay marriage. But that's and so much of what it was in the Lincoln Diocese, and information technology attracts people who are into that. And so, Fabian Bruskewitz was the nearly conservative bishop, and he was in Lincoln forever. We have more priests per capita than anywhere in the US because we accept a ton of priests who aren't from Nebraska. They come from surrounding states because they don't remember their ain bishop is conservative plenty. Therefore, we're getting the most conservative aspiring seminarians because they desire to be led by this ultra-conservative person who wants to utilize 1950s morals to the world and all of these things.

Rail: They're much more of a Benedict vibe than Francis, in other words.

Benes: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Rail: Abortion is such a deciding consequence for then many in Nebraska and many other places around the country. From my perspective, I accept talked to my native-liberal friends in New York and have tried to explain to them why this person or this Democrat just couldn't get elected in my abode land or mayhap someplace very similar like South Dakota or Kansas. I just say, "Well, they're Pro-Choice. That idea ain't gonna fly in those parts."

Benes: It'south all mostly nearly abortion. And no ane likes cognitive dissonance. So when [Cosmic leaders] find that they can take an influence on one of the two major political parties, and the party listens to them by existence Pro-Life, that's addicting. And they tend to overlook the other flaws in Republicans. Because if you expect at the tenets of Catholic social teaching, both political parties are flawed. Obviously, Catholics are against abortion, so that excludes them from the Democratic position on abortion. Just the basic tenets of social teaching also say that we should treat the surround well. We should treat the poor well. Nosotros should have good labor laws. Nosotros should treat immigrants well. It is similar if politicians are Pro-Life, other blemishes are forgiven. My friends in Nebraska take told me that our governor, Pete Ricketts, was at some of these conferences that Nebraska Catholic bishops would put on, and he was an honored invitee. And while he was attending these functions, he was dropping $300,000 of his personal cash to bring the [then-repealed] death penalty dorsum, and Catholics take never been for the death penalty.

Rail: While the bulk of small-town Nebraskans are true believers in the pews, therefore, abortion is this singular wedge consequence. At the aforementioned time, in my opinion, that wedge issue gets supported across a lot of their media. Then, is it really near abortion with all of these people? In some cases, I think abortion becomes an alibi for them to vote for their favorite team more that it's really a persistent idea on their minds.

Benes: That'due south definitely the case for some people. It does become like voting for a team. And even if Trump hadn't nominated Pro-Life judges, they still would've made excuses for him.

Track: Conservatives and liberals alike love them some judges.

Benes: But it gets really crazy when it's a mayor or a metropolis council fellow member running for election, and abortion comes into the race. What the hell does the mayor of Omaha got to do in deciding whether or not abortion is legal?

Runway: Ane of the more interesting characters in your book is Democratic Mayor Jon Knutson of Schuyler, Nebraska.

Benes: He totally is a regular guy. He told me what helps him is that political party names aren't on the ballots in Schuyler. He said, "Well, I'm a Democrat, but a lot of people don't even know I am." Finer, when you're the mayor of any small town, your political party affiliation really shouldn't thing. You want to make sure the police department is fine, the roads are fixed and things are merely running well in town. What's in national politics shouldn't suck up all the oxygen. And thankfully, in Schuyler, information technology seems similar those people have been able to work cross-party well. And so I retrieve a big reason why that is, is it'due south a non-partisan office.

Rail: Can that idea be an emerging roadmap for Democrats to win in scarlet areas—to not run as the abode team or the visiting team, but to run on actually what y'all want to do? Can that work beyond the municipal level?

Benes: It could if you got more than races to be non-partisan and open up principal.

Rail: Nebraska has the only unicameral legislature in the U.s.a., meaning it has i nonpartisan branch of legislative government that works with the executive branch—the governor's part. Your book describes how Ricketts has moved the unicameral to the right.

Benes: It's withal non about as far-right as Kansas's legislature has been for the concluding fifteen years and some of these other states in our region. And that'due south because of the manner the unicameral was ready to take non-partisan open primary elections. And you lot can do this [organisation] in other races. The way to do it would exist through a courtroom decision or through a constitutional subpoena like a ballot measure. So, Democrats in states that are red, it'd be in their interest to endeavor to get it mandated that basically, beyond the federal level, you don't actually need partisan labels on things. And an open master organisation helps because information technology reduces the likelihood that you're going to get a crazy person.

Rails: You are less likely to get elected officials who grandstand for media and national party attention instead of serving their constituents. New Yorkers may want to know a little bit more nigh Ricketts, who you examine pretty closely in Rural Rebellion. Information technology's non out of the realm of possibility that he could run for president, right?

Benes: It'south definitely not out of the realm of possibility.

Rail: And he'south got a billion dollars and is a ruthless politician.

Benes: Oh, yeah.

Rail: Then what makes him tick? As your book lays out, he is trying to turn Nebraska'south unique unicameral arrangement into a partisan vessel. Is he trying to reprogram the power structure of the state for time to come generations to come? Is he doing it for his immediate proceeds? Or is he just all most these right-wing policies, and that'south all he cares about?

Benes: I don't really remember he's all about the right-wing policies because when he ran for the Senate in 2006, the first time he entered politics, he was actually very moderate on immigration, and he got his donkey kicked by Ben Nelson. Nelson really ran to the right of him, even though Nelson was a Democrat, and that injure Ricketts. At the time, there was this anti-immigration fervor building in Nebraska. And Ricketts wouldn't have won the race anyways—he lost by a big margin. Only he came dorsum to run for governor in 2014 and all the people, talk radio and all these other far-correct people, tried to say, "Oh, this is a guy who believes in amnesty." So, he went far-right on clearing, and he used that to win the Republican gubernatorial master. Therefore, I dubiousness in those viii years Ricketts really grew to despise immigrants more than. I think he saw that as a way to win with the GOP base. So, he flipped on that event. And I remember he would do that on other problems if it would assistance him win the ballot.

Rail: Your book states that his dad, Joe Ricketts, who was born in Nebraska City and grew his multi-billion-dollar financial visitor, Ameritrade, in Omaha, at present lives in Wyoming to avoid paying his home state's college taxes.

Benes: Aye. And he spends an asinine amount of coin on Nebraska political races, too.

Rail: All of that is sorta remarkable. That story would exist such a scar on near whatever other family unit name in whatsoever other state while trying to run for a tiptop political office. The taker vs. giver narrative is normally an unshakeable ensnarement for a politician to find oneself in.

Benes: And if you call up nigh how Pete Ricketts got into power, he had the lowest winning percentage of a primary in Nebraska history because it was a six-manner race, and, in such a case, you simply need to have xx-something percentage of the vote. And [2014 GOP principal candidate] Jon Bruning would have won if he didn't screw himself and get caught upward in a scandal about [student loans mega-corporation] Nelnet. Ricketts wasn't really that popular, but he won the GOP main. And Democrats are so ineffective these days, he then was guaranteed the governorship. So what I think he's trying to exercise now by being then ruthless is he'due south trying to gain recognition within the National Republican Party. That'southward why he's such a Trump toadie. That's why he basically ever conforms to the National GOP agenda on whatsoever outcome, no matter the local context. He wants to exist a name in that party for a long time to come. And he'due south got so much money that he tin can always brand himself a candidate on a shortlist. Even if he doesn't run for president in 2024, he's building this matter so he could be part of the National Republican Party for ages to come.

Rails: OK, Ricketts' viii-year development or political pivot on immigration underscores i of the major points in your book. In 2006, as a business person, he was like, "Nosotros're an agribusiness country. Nosotros demand immigrants."

Benes: He was being reasonable.

Rail: So, the national party started going hard confronting immigration, and blast, hither we are, 15 years later, and information technology's all about the national narrative and not what the local economy needs.

Benes: Oh, it totally is. That's why Northward Dakota supported the edge wall. They border Canada, for chrissakes.

Track: Your book explains your time in Lincoln educational activity refugees ESL classes and how those experiences personally transformed your views on immigration.

Benes: Forming relationships with immigrants had a considerable bear on. In my hometown, well-nigh people opposed illegal immigration strongly because it was viewed strictly in legal terms. To be against illegal immigration was to support an abstract principle. I say abstract considering our town had no immigrants or any diversity, really. Simply after you really form relationships with refugees or immigrants, those policies no longer are abstract. They become more existent because they take an impact on human beings that y'all care nearly. That'south why back up for the border wall was stiff in rural North Dakota. But in places where many immigrants live, like Brooklyn, in that location isn't support for those restrictions because in Brooklyn the benefits that immigrants bring to our land are much more clear than they are in small towns that lack newcomers.

Rail: You detail in your book how the Republican Ricketts has maneuvered to make the unicameral partisan by putting money in primarying GOP—GOP—state senators who are non right-wing plenty. Is the unicameral going to agree up during his reign or is information technology in trouble, Ross?

Benes: I think it'due south getting a little flake better. The biggest trouble spots were probably two to three years ago, and it's definitely more partisan than it was before Ricketts. And it'due south gotten increasingly to the right since 2000 when the land adopted term limits. But I don't think it's totally screwed. And the reason I take a piffling bit of hope is the commission chairs they selected this yr weren't all far-correct Republicans similar they had been in the recent past. For instance, at that place was this nut task, [Mike] Groene, who was heading the instruction committee, and he's a very anti-teaching Republican. He's out this year. Now, they have a reasonable, moderate Democrat in that position. And when Ricketts leaves, I don't know if the next governor is going to care or have the resources to exert this much pressure level on the legislature.

Rail: That seems like good news. Permit's motion on to former Nebraska governor and senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat. You accept a chapter dedicated to his vote for Obamacare—the vote that made it a law, more or less. The chapter is called "The Cornhusker Kickback." Around the time of the 2010 Senatorial vote for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, I was in the Omaha airport and about to fly back to NYC when I saw Ben Nelson and his LEGO haircut in i of the terminals. And he was getting hounded by constituents wanting to talk to him well-nigh Obamacare. They looked a piddling upset, and I will never forget it because he was really handling it well. I thought, God, that would suck. Merely trying to get on an plane and people are in your face, and you don't know how mad they are going to be.

Benes: The Cornhusker Kickback was major considering that was the last time a congressperson gave Nebraska a significant vote to laissez passer progressive legislation in Congress. And of course, no good human action goes unpunished. A lot of congressional Democrats similar him who voted for the healthcare police force either got voted out or they decided not to run because it became so controversial. Nelson left, and that was the last gasp for the Nebraska Democrats nationally. I hateful, they had no one to replace him who was actually ready. In 2012, they had to go get [former Nebraska governor, The states Senator and 1992 Democratic presidential candidate] Bob Kerrey, who had been in New York for a decade. That idea didn't work. And every Democrat who tried to run statewide since and so has done worse than the one before. If Nelson was never asked to brand that crucial vote, I don't know if he would've left. Mayhap nosotros could've got someone like Ben Nelson for another term or so.

Track: Nebraska expanded Medicaid to more 10,000 low-income people terminal yr. Then, Nelson's been vindicated in a fashion. Equally you lot explain in your volume, his vote for Obamacare has been important to you due to your illnesses and the healthcare law's opinion toward pre-existing conditions.

Benes: Living in a small, bourgeois boondocks, information technology was almost instinctive to hate Big Government. Obamacare was certainly Big Government. Merely I became more receptive to those types of programs because I personally experienced how beneficial they could be. When I developed numerous diseases, and then had to pay my medical bills equally an adult, I really realized how valuable government-sponsored healthcare could be. And that led me to be more supportive of programs like Obamacare, which I would have been against when I was younger and healthier.

Rails: We both know people in Nebraska small towns who decided, "No, I'chiliad not going to vote for this Trump guy." Then we know someone from that verbal same household who did vote for Trump. What's the difference between such voters?

Benes: I think a lot of times, information technology's the media sources they ingest. The people who I know from back home, even if they're really conservative, some of them may have supported Trump reluctantly. Some of them may accept not voted for him at all. Those people tend to not listen to much talk radio, not be on Facebook all the fourth dimension, not lookout man much Pull a fast one on News. They read the paper. They may watch the news on the local affiliate of ABC or CBS or NBC or any. The ones who are like, "This is my president. I call back the election was stolen," and like, "I'm going to keep defending every terrible thing he did, and I'm fine with whatever is washed." Those are the ones who are on Facebook more. And that doesn't explain away everything, simply I think it'due south a big chunk. I call back that'south a big reason why my parents didn't vote for Trump—they didn't get and then defenseless up in information technology because they get their news from ABC.

Rail: How did y'all come to write Rural Rebellion?

Benes: After Trump was elected, at parties or conferences, someone would almost ever ask, "Where are you from?" I'd say, "Nebraska." They'd answer, "Oh, my gosh. Ah, they really liked Trump there. What's that like?" Or, "Oh, those people there are really conservative." Really, they've always been conservative, just in fact, Nebraskans really got people'south attention subsequently Trump. And all of that got me thinking this book could be a good idea.

Track: Some people are going to retrieve of Thomas Frank'due south What's the Affair with Kansas? when they see your book. Did that book affect your determination to write this i at all? Or is in that location whatever connection to information technology?

Benes: Well, in that location's a connectedness because it covers a similar topic in that it'due south getting back into the story of the far right. I think the biggest difference is that I evidence a stronger appreciation for Nebraska than Thomas Frank for Kansas. I enjoyed his book. It was really funny, but I really love Nebraska. So as much as I hate the far-right drift of the state, I talk more about the things I like about Nebraska rather than shitting on information technology. His book was—he shat on Kansas pretty hard in that book. Therefore, I'd say a big divergence is I am more than empathetic toward my family and friends and even to my former self.

Rail: How the hell did you get an agent while yet an undergrad in Nebraska? Nothing against you or our alma mater, only it'southward not like you lot had a poem published in the Library of Congress or some other unusual line item on your resume.

Benes: I got an amanuensis through persistence. I got rejected/never heard back most 90 times before I landed one.

Rails: I last question: Rural Rebellion is a notable difference from your Sex Effect and Sex Weird-o-Pedia books. Have you heard from your more sexual activity-minded fans?

Benes: Actually, I did a radio interview this calendar week with a Cape Cod station. And the interviewer asked, "Ross, tin you tell u.s. how porn started e-commerce?" [Laughs.] And we talked virtually those things. And then, like, at the end of the interview, he's, like, "And past the way, Ross is likewise a serious journalist. He has this new book chosen Rural Rebellion."

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Source: https://brooklynrail.org/2021/03/books/ROSS-BENES-with-Christopher-Heine

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