It looks like former House Speaker and once upon a time “rising star” Paul Ryan wants to be back in the spotlight. Given he’s taking on Trump one might think he’s in “be careful what you wish for territory” but as you know Trump has other and more immediate problems to deal with. Still, at some point he’ll react to Ryan saying with him at the top of the ticket in November down ballot Republican candidates that had a chance of winning will instead lose. More bluntly, Ryan’s saying with Trump at the Party’s leader the GOP is going to lose a lot of races.
In a short article from Bezinga things are bluntly spelled out:
“I think we’re going to lose more seats than we otherwise would with Trump because there are just too many suburban swing voters that just don’t like him, that therefore vote against Republicans.”
Ryan also suggested that former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley would have been a more unifying choice. He criticized the current GOP for being a cult of personality tied to Trump, rather than being based on a set of principles.
It doesn’t get any more direct than that. It also happens to almost certainly be true. It’s weird to hear that level of truth from Paul Ryan but things went way beyond weird years ago. As I said, Ryan was once a rising star in the GOP and boy was he conservative’s golden boy with his plan to dismantle and privatize Social Security and Medicare. He was never as smart or savvy as he and conservatives believed but he was young and telegenic and could turn on the smarm to make his case to the public.
Given his appearance the Eddie Munster references were a given but Eddie Munster was an okay kid. No Ryan is a real life only worse (far worse) version of another fictional Eddie from another long ago TV show – Eddie Haskell from Leave It To Beaver. THAT Eddie was a sneaky, two-faced scheming bundle of trouble-making. Still, I had to give Ryan some credit for speaking out in 2016 against Trump although he tried to work with him for a while after Trump was elected. However, Ryan saw the writing on the wall and got out before he got to the point Boehner had – stepping aside before getting tossed aside by his fellow Republicans.
Ryan found himself a gig at Fox News and has seldom made much news of his own since. Well, he’s doing so now. The GOP is Trump’s Party lock, stock and barrel and he’s out to purge anyone who doesn’t worship him even above God and Jesus from the ranks. For those with some actual power or influence who stand up to him Trump is cooking up all manner of retribution once he’s dictator. If Ryan wasn’t on the “list” before he sure as hell is now. Or will be once Trump becomes aware of what Ryan’s saying. Publicly!
It will be fun to see what kind of all-caps rant comes from Trump’s stubby thumbs. All because Ryan is daring to say publicly what all but the hard core MAGAs know to be true – Trump is going to cost Republicans a LOT of down ballot races this fall if he refuses to step aside. Which of course Trump will never do. Ryan’s still young enough maybe he’s just laying down a marker to try and be a key player in rebuilding from the ashes of a Trump/MAGA electoral disaster. Still, anything that spreads and/or intensifies GOP infighting is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
So to Ryan I say “keep it up.” And to those of you who’ve extended me the courtesy of reading this keep an eye out for Trump’s reaction. He WILL get around to responding!
Rats in a bag turning on each other.