Sen. Ben Sasse (R – Neb.) took a moment to speak to reporters in Iowa on Saturday at The Family Leader’s Celebrate the Family event and responded to a question about making speeches to likeminded individuals.

Sasse responded with a perfect summary of American political life and what’s happening with the growing polarization and tribalism of American political life.

Watch:

Unexpected press gaggle with @BenSasse at #CelebrateTheFamily. I was late to the party. #iapolitics pic.twitter.com/J0miiQNsCh

— Shane Vander Hart (@shanevanderhart) November 19, 2017

Sasse said:

“I think that neighborhoods are often not comprised of people who are likeminded. Neighbors at coffee shops in Fairmont, Nebraska, the 25,000 person farm town I’m from three hours from here, lots and lots of people differ on policy debates. They just don’t think policy defines the line between good and evil.

They think that raising your kids to play sports right and with honor and integrity and respect, and to get your math homework done on time, and to be the kind of neighbors people want to have living next door to you, all of those textured communal things, are more important than our political tribes.

The problem is, as people are more and more mobile and less and less anchored at any one place political tribes tries to fill in a lot of that meeting. It won’t work.

You can’t fix what’s broken in American politics with more politics. Most of what matters in American life and most of what’s broken in American life is cultural stuff well upstream from politics.

And we have a lot of people right now who are trying to take this crisis of loneliness and placelessness and work disruption and try to fill in political answers. Politics aren’t smart enough to fix the diversity of texture of all that’s troubled right now.”

Again, Sasse gets down to the issue in question by pointing out the growing gap between Right and Left in the country is a symptom of what’s going on in other areas of American life.

Politics as filler for a much more mobile and less rooted society is something we still have yet to resolve in the age of global instant communication.