BEN SASSE: ‘Shared Civic Understanding of America’ Needed Before Arguing Party, Policy Differences.

“We need to have a shared civic understanding of America before we get to partisan and policy differences. There are important fights to be had in policy. But we first need a civic sense of what America is. And here’s what comes next in things like Russian interference in America and in other countries in the age of cyber-war over the next decade. I’m obviously concerned about 2016, but I’m far more concerned about 2018 and 2020, because here is what comes next,” Sasse continued, giving the example of cyberhacking that releases mostly true information with some false info intended to take down a candidate: “Your phone records are dumped, and they’re 99 percent accurate, but 1 percent, you’re calling a brothel in Chattanooga on Tuesday nights, when your wife is at bridge club.”

“That is what is coming next in the era of cyber-war. And we’re going to need to have some institutions that we can rely on and believe are apolitical, when the public has more and more doubt.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but our public institutions have never been so politicized.